Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent coverage.
That is possible.
If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Good morning, everybody, Welcome to Spooky Points with Crystal and Sager. I am the hidden Indian passenger of the Ghost of the Titanic. Sager and Jenny and I have a co host today here from Australia.
What up, everybody.
Australian break dancing Phenom.
Raygun right here, right here.
That's right, took the world by storm with my iconic moves and I thought I would join everybody this morning to show you a few of those.
You ready, Are you ready?
Absolutely?
Here we go, world, Here we go, Here we go. What up, everybody? That's right? I got a little sprinkler for you. I got a little sprinkler for you. I got a little kangaroo hot for you. I got a little Kangaroo Hot for you ready for this one?
Whoa?
You were not ready for that? You were not ready for that? How about this one?
You ready? You ready watch this?
That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right.
You know what.
You know what, I got another one for you. Bam, that's right, that's right. Give me the gold medal right now?
Well, I certainly didn't have that at my time at the Olympics.
I mean, she's a superstar, right. I had to go with Raygun because.
She is such an inspiration that literally anyone could make it to the Olympics.
You're absolutely right. For my mind is much less complicated.
I got this for my wedding, and I just said, the only way I can justify this expense is if I wear it for Halloween every single day.
So there we go. That was fun. I enjoyed it.
Tents around here, so we wanted the lights mood.
You've got a light in the mood. So what has even in the show?
I've been too Genuinely, I was a little too focused on my Kangaroo hops to really think it through.
But I know we got polls.
We got Injermentum coming in to talk to us about why he thinks the polls could be under estimating Kamala. He was right about things in the past that we'll talk to him about.
That Trump was in a garbage truck.
Trump's in a garbage truck.
Elon is threatening a severe depression if Trump gets elected, as if that's like a positive thing. We got Bill Clinton running around really not being helpful in Michigan with air of American voters. We got to stop the steal nonsense. So anyway, happy Halloween, everybody, hope happen very well.
I hope that we can raise your spirit, inspire the holidays. It's you know, it doesn't always have to be tense and can we can still have a good time even what is it five.
Days before the election a something like that. Yeah, it's five days before So there we go. We're excited.
Thank you to all of our premusubscribers breakingpoints dot com.
You can go ahead and sign up there.
I guess we should have done to give away like a first reveal right in terms of our Yeah, that would have been a smart business level, but instead we're just over here having fun. So to make up for it, go ahead and sign up Breaking Points. We've got a great election night show planned for everybody. We're genuinely, really really excited for it. So that's right, all right, let's go ahead and start.
Let's do it.
Actually, one of our premium subscribers sort of inspired this whole month.
That's true that we got a question Ama about like, hey, will you guys dress up?
Yeah, and I was she didn't want to do it.
I don't know because if there's some I mean, we are coming Israel in the show, so it's not like there's not serious things in the potential sever your depression. So it's not like there aren't serious things in the show, and so you can feel sort of like, I mean, I do feel sort of ridiculous right at this moment, but.
What the hell?
I felt most ridiculous in what the heck because the guy looked over at me and started giggling.
Yeah.
When I was just walking over here in the street, I was like, Oh, this is.
Embarrassing, conceivably something you could ever wear Civilion.
That's yeah. Actually that's actually what makes.
It more embarrassing, Yeah, because you, oh, people think I'm actually just wearing them, like for real, just wearing them.
So anyway, we all here.
We are our spirit here here we are point.
All right, let's get to what is going on in the world. Start with some polling.
Here.
We had a little snippet from Harry Enton over at CNN talking about how if Trump does ultimately win, many signs were there indicating that that could possibly be the case.
Let's take a listen to that percentage of the public that thinks that the country is on the right track when the incumbent party loses. It's twenty five percent. That twenty five percent looks an awful bit luck like that twenty eight percent up there, It doesn't look anything anything like this. Forty two percent doesn't look anything like this twenty eight percent. So the bottom line is very few Americans think the country is on the right track at
this particular point. It tracks much more with when the incumbent party loses than when it wins. In fact, I went back through history. There isn't a single time in which twenty eight percent of the American public thinks the country is going on the right track in which the incumbent party actually won. They always lose when just twenty eight percent of the country believes that the country is on the right track. Now, we don't know if Kamala
Harris is going to succeed Joe Biden. But we know back in two thousand and eight George W. Bush, his approval rating was down in the twenties. Did a Republican succeed George W.
Bush?
No?
How about in nineteen sixty eight Lyndon Baines Johnson, his net approval rating was negative. Did a Democrats succeed Lyndon Baines Johnson?
No?
How about in fifty two Harry S. Truman. His approval rating was in the twenties, if not the upper teens. Did a Democrat succeed Harry AS Truman in fifty two? My memory? No? No is Kate Balwins says Diana. Diana's Republicans have been registered voters in big, huge numbers. They have been gaining in party registration versus the Democrats in
the swing states with party registration. We're talking Arizona. I think it's a five point they've expanded their lead from five points from where it was back in twenty twenty. How about Nevada, big Republican registrations there, they liked the early vote. How about North Carolina, big Republican registration games. How about Pennsylvania. We spoke about it before a few months ago, big Republican Party registration gains versus from where they were.
So we're definitely at the point in the election saga where there's something for everyone. Absolutely, if you want to look at those historical trends, totally legitimate wrong track numbers are horrific for Democrats. You've got a very unpopular Democratic incomment.
And to be honest with you, I do think if Kama will lose this as much as these factors that we talk about in terms of their you know, totally losing the air of American Muslim American vote, turning off young voters, like running around with Liz Cheney, all of these things are going to matter. But I honestly do think that the unpopularity of Joe Biden is the biggest weight around her neck.
Yeah, sometimes the fundamentals are the most important, and we've been looking at global trends. You've seen post incumbent parties. Mattic Lacius recently wrote about this. Nate Silver also identified the trend. But they've lost elections across the entire globe. So sometimes that is just a precursor and a signal of what is to come now, as you said, there
are signs for everybody. Let's put this up there on the screen, please, Well you can see in this very large pole sample we talked a little bit about this last time around, some seventy thousand American adults. So that's why you should pay attention. This is national likely voters, and they have Arizona. I'm gonna read each state. Arizona they have Trump at fifty one forty seven, Georgia fifty one forty six for Trump. Now in Michigan it actually
is flipped. They have Harris fifty one Trump, forty six. Nevada, this was the biggest surprise for me. Harris fifty one Trump forty seven, North Carolina fifty forty eight for Trump, Pennsylvania Razor tied forty nine, forty eight for Kamala Harris, Texas fifty one to forty seven, and then Wisconsin at
fifty and forty seven. So clearly what you can see is a slight edge for Kamala Harris in the Blue Wall States, with the Sun Belt states really moving away from her, which would put her around a two seventy two sixty eight. In fact, though Nate Silver's new analysis has North Carolina as the most likely tipping point state
at number two. If you do see a shock on election night, it could certainly come from there, And that'd be a very interesting map, It really would where we could see if Kamala was able to flip North Carolina but then lose all of the Sunbell states, you would have a full on, quote unquote realignment phenomenon where you just have this coalition of white, suburban, college educated voters who deliver the presidency to her across these four states, even though Trump is able to run up his margins
in all of the Sunbelt and particularly with black and Latino men.
Yeah, Democrats like the gender divide that we've seen in the early voting results, and I've even seen some Republicans like Cernovich and Charlie Kirk now saying that they're concerned about that. Now they may just be saying that to try to make sure they're re juicing their voters and not giving them a sense of overconfidence, because overconfidence is
like all that the Trump campaign has been selling. So I don't know how genuinely concerned they are, But North Carolina is one of those states where there's been a significant gender gap in terms of turnout where there are significantly more women turning out in the early vote than men. Now, early vote, you really shouldn't make that much of it, because who knows who's going to sho go up on
election day and that's all that counts. Like voting early versus voting on election day, your vote still only counts once. But if you're looking to try to read the tea leaves about who's excited, who's turning out their coalition, et cetera, that's a sign that's positive in favor of Democrats that at least some Republicans are voicing some concern about, Yeah, I.
Have the early vote female number actually right in front of me. So in Georgia the early vote female share was fifty six, and twenty twenty it's fifty five percent today.
In Pennsylvania, this is where it's the most interesting.
In twenty twenty it was fifty seven, twenty twenty four, it's fifty six. Arizona it was twenty twenty fifty four, twenty twenty four fifty two percent. So you have a majority female early vote all across the board. There's been some talk of this whole so co called like cannibalizing vote phenomenon. But I'm just not sure how much to buy that. It's very clear to me that the country just loves early voting.
Now.
I mean, you have almost fifty million ballots that have been cast across I mean, that's almost one third of the entire electorate. You'll have even more in the coming days, and then obviously on election day itself, probably what'll be going to see maybe not record turnout, but it will
not be the same as it was previously. So in Nevada, I believe some sixty percent of the overall vote has already been cast projected vote, so you can really start to play with what you want for what the results are, which is what John Rawlston has been looking at. But there are signs for anybody who wants the tea leaves. And I just think the main takeaway is you can't be shocked at any outcomings.
Yeah, No, that's absolutely right, including like a significant blowout for either side. Absolutely is in some ways almost more likely than the you know, razor thin like they win to seventy to do sixty eight or whatever. It's probably more likely that all or most of the battleground states go in one or the other direction. If you assume that there's like let's say it's the you know, twenty sixteen or twenty twenty polling this, then you end up
with Trump sweeping all of the battleground states. If it's the twenty twenty two polling this, then you end up with comelessly sweeping all but one of the battle ground states. So who knows what you're really looking at. Speaking of Pennsylvania, could put this up on the screen. This is the latest from momth I surprise, they've got it really close.
I was sorry. This is the ann pole.
This is actually interesting because it's not tough.
It's not tied like so many of these polsters. I really do buy into the view that many of these polsters are very nervous about getting it blatantly wrong, and so they're whether intentionally or not, somewhat putting their thumb on the scales to make sure that the race is close. And so so many of the poles are forty eight, forty seven, forty nine, forty nine, et cetera. CNN put on a pole that shows, you know, some significant separation between Harris and Trump. You've got in Michigan, Kamala up
forty eight forty three. In Wisconsin, Kamala up fifty one forty five. That's one of the states that has seen to and some of the polling averages move against her a bit, so for them to find her up by six year outside of the margin of error is significant. But then you've got Pennsylvania tied forty eight forty eight, and obviously she's.
Going to take that blue wall path.
She has to sweep all of those states, you know, assuming she doesn't win the sun melt states, which we don't really know.
Those are all so are very close.
But these are the states that she's been performing the best in buy and large, and they've got Pennsylvania tied so incredibly close.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, especially I mean even with Pa and that tie figure. I'm just getting really sick of looking at it just because there is no indication. I mean, look, last time around, obviously everything's been within one point of each other with Joe Biden. Same thing in twenty sixteen when Trump eked out a win over there. Mamath gives us some similar stuff to look at. Let's put this up there on
the screen. This is specifically the Pennsylvania voter poll So what they find here is presidential support, and this is included with third party Harris and Trump. So among registered voters it's forty six forty seven. Amongst quote extremely motivated voters, they have it as a tie. Amongst twenty twenty voters, they actually have Trump up by one percent. Amongst twenty twenty two, they have Kamala up by two percent. And I don't know exactly what this means high moderate propensity voters.
Whatever the hell that is forty eight forty seven for commas. I mean, basically, it's like in that tie tie in all of this. I mean, and again, you know, when you go early vote diving, you can find whatever you want. You can terms look at the female vote, you can you can look at rural versus urban. But I think one of the main reasons why comparing it to twenty twenty is just a real crapshoot is that Republicans have
dramatically changed their tune on early voting. They have dramatically changed the way that they themselves are even looking and about turnout and all of that. So, I mean, just for example, this morning, I was looking at Georgia. In Georgia, the highest percentage of early vote totals is in the rural counties, it's not in Fulton, and in the suburban counties.
It's a lot of elderly whites who live in rural districts who have been taking advantage of early vote because that's what they were told to do by the Trump campaign. Now that really much could put him over the edge, considering that they lost by such a razor thin margin back in twenty twenty, so it could very be a smart strategy. But that's exactly my point is you could still turn out quite close and even have some sort of democratic surge with early voting or even late later
early voting and or election day voting. That really comes home. That's a big question too about the gender gap. When you've got majority female of the electorate in the early vote, does that mean that men are going to wait until day of? That is problematic just for in general, because a you want to bank votes, but stuff happens sometimes on election day, well, line is long, whatever, people don't want to do it and they just died to go home.
So you know, all of these things certainly matter on the margins.
Yeah.
Ryan made a point on Twitter yesterday that it's funny, but also like not without any not without no backing. He said, I love my dudes. But if there's a nationwide contest between men and women that goes to the group that manages to show up at the right place and fill out their forms on time and do all those things, the men would need to start with an advantage of several millions to be competitive. So that's Ryan
Grimm's take on the gender battle here. But yeah, I mean, I think that when we look at all these states in the early vote in particular number one, you have to keep in mind that in every single state the rules are completely different. Some states have early in person. Some states don't have early in person, some states have. Pennsylvania sort of has early in person. But then it's this weird like you have to go and pick up an absentee ballot and then like come back.
And it's not like in person at the same time, right, get it and then give it back.
It's not the same as like you just wait in line and like do the thing like you would do on election day. Like in Virginia, I already voted, And that's how it works. You go in like it's election day, and you you know, put in your in the machine, and that's that's very simple. It's very simple and easy. Pennsylvania is apparently more cumbersome. Some states have more of a tradition of mail in balloting. A lot of the Western states seem to have more of a tradition of
mail in balloting, even pre dating the pandemic. And then you do still have some partisan differences in people's voting preferences. So even though Republicans have been consistently urging early vote, the emphasis has been on early in person. So for example, in Nevada, you know, which is a state that looks the best for Republicans in terms of the early vote.
The preponderance of the Republican vote is that early in person, where Democrats continue to have somewhat of an edge in the mail in balloting, and.
That seems to be pretty consistent.
You've got Elon Musk and you've got Trump still out there swing like you know, concern about mail in ballots. So that's been the preference for a lot of Republican voters. And then on the Democratic side, I mean remember twenty twenty, that was a pandemic, So there were people who turned in a mail in ballot then, who normally are in person voters who are reverting to back to what their previous habits are because they're no longer fearful of being
around other human beings. So you would expect to have some erosion in terms of the Democratic early vote.
That's why it.
Really is apples to oranges in terms of comparing the twenty twenty four early vote numbers to the twenty twenty numbers. So anyway, that's that's what we can say about it. I think we have one more like tide pole that we could show everybody for what it's worth. This is a Marquette Law pole of likely Wisconsin voters. This is a five and put this up on the screen, Harris a fifty Trump at forty nine within the margin of error,
so effectively tied. And you also show here a very close Wisconsin Senate race, which there have been some indications that some the Senate races previously the Democrats outside of Montana have been pretty consistently, you know, with a wide margin. Wisconsin is one. In Pennsylvania is another where that gap seems to have been closing in the final days. So we'll see if that ultimately pans out.
I've also seen.
Some more positive indicators for John Tester in the state of Montana. I've seen a couple polls that have him tied with his opponent she he so perhaps giving Democrats some bit of hope that they may actually be able to hold I.
Saw that too.
Yeah, I mean, look that the Senate ones there's actually not nearly enough high quality polling. I Montana in particular, right very notoriously difficult pull a state poll. They also usually don't do it at a state level or at a national media level because they mostly leave it to
the campaigns. And then in terms of Ohio, I've seen similar stuff where I've seen Shared Brown up by like seven points, and then I've also seen it completely within the margin of error, and then Bernie Morino's campaign cleaning that he is ahead in their internal polls which they released. So it's one of those where truly choose your own adventure. We have one more flavor of a bunch of tied states new Fox News battleground polls.
Can we put that one up there? Please? What do we have?
Pennsylvania fifty forty nine for Trump, Michigan forty nine, forty nine, North Carolina fifty forty nine. So the only one that's actually interesting to me there is North Carolina because that it was the closest one where they had Trump only up by one. We're previously up by almost two to three, and every other one that I looked at, considering that Joe Biden only or lost it by about a pot or point five percent last time, that means that Harris very much could be put over the edge in some
sort of shock victory. Like I said, Nate Silver's new election model now has North Carolina has the number two tipping point state behind penncyl. In some ways, this is not bad for those who are going to watch with us, and because we're on East coast time, because we will get the returns in pretty soon from Georgia, from North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and we won't have to wait forever for Arizona. For Arizona, and you know, the Nevada votes
to come in. If we get, for example, a Trump sweep or a likely Trump sweep in all three of those states, I you can pretty reliably say, like, what's going to happen, although of course you know a lot can but in terms. But and then other way, if
we see major Democratic overperformance. Back in twenty twenty two, for example, early night, things didn't look good for Democrats because Florida vote came in and it was a red blowout for Ron Santis was looking like that way, that's right, and then Pennsylvania returns and everyone it was a complete shock.
Of course, Fetterman ends up winning by five points, which we knew relatively quickly on election night there, So keep that in mind for you know, don't get don't base your Florida conclusion off what happened, or is our Pensylvania conclusion off what happens in Florida. My eyes are really on North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania in the East coast time By around nine thirty ten PM, we're going to have a pretty good idea about what's going on there
and over performance and stuff. And by that time the Central time zone will also be come to come in as well, and then we'll really see what the phenomenon is there in the Blue states.
Yeah, that's greatol.
Also just a note for everybody programming note, So of course we're going to do live election that coverage, which were super excited about. We'll have Ryan and I'm only here we'll do the whole thing. We're going to have Logan in studio breaking down the numbers. That was one of the areas that we were trying to improve upon from some of the last elections, making sure because it's hard for us to like talk and also really stay
on top of all the data that's coming in. So we've got Logan coming into and partnering with Decision Desk HQ.
They are always very quick in.
Terms of getting the most updated results, so he's going to be manning that and updating us throughout the night, which we're very excited about. We're also going to do election previews tomorrow with Ryan and Emily, so you can take a look for that. And next week we're basically like, you know, it may be that we know election night what happens, and it's really.
Clear that is entirely possible.
It's also entirely possible that we go for a week still looking like, oh, they're still counting in Philadelphia, they're still counting in Phoenix or whatever. So we're kind of all on standby next week to make sure that we're able to continuously update you guys and stay on top of whatever the news so can lever follow that in the meantime. As I mentioned before, I don't know if you guys have seen Edin Germentum on Twitter or on substack,
but his actual name is Josh. He was correct in twenty twenty two about saying, hey, guys, this does soundok like a red wave to me, when we and many others were wrong. He also was correct in calling the Georgia Warnock election another one that many analysts and polsters got wrong. Now Josh it wants Colma to win. He is a partisan, so factor that in. But you know, he's done some really thoughtful analysis of why it could be that the polls are underestimating the Democrats this time.
Went previously, in twenty twenty and twenty sixteen, they were underestimating the Republicans. So we wanted to have Josh and to break all of those insights down for us.
Let's get to it.
Joining us now by phone, we have Josh aka Eden Germentum.
Great to have you, sar, Yeah, it's great to be on.
Yeah, of course, so I just built you up a little bit. We can throw this up.
On the screen.
A eight guys, A eight, Oh well, we will get to this in a second, but the very last element of this block is just to give you some cred. You called twenty twenty two, right, you said, hey, I don't think this looks like a red wave. You also called the Warnock race correctly. You've since started a substack where you've been delving into how you're looking at all
of these races. But you've been saying, hey, it's possible that actually this time, unlike twenty sixteen and twenty twenty, the polls could be systematically underestimating Democrats, which is what happened in twenty twenty two. Now I laid out for everybody like you're you know, you're a Partison, you want Kamla to win. It's so people can factor that in
as they will. But what is your analysis of why you think the polls could be looking more like a twenty twenty two mid term miss that underestimated the Democrats versus the last times that Trump.
Was on the ballot.
Yeah.
Well, this chart that you're seeing up here, this actually isn't mine. This is by my friend Josh Taft, who created this model. I just highlighted for him yesterday. But it does illustrate something that I think is an important
consideration here. So the way this model works you can see its past track record in its current projection, is that it large it's partially based on polling, but it also adjusts that the factor in things like pre election indicators from actual voters, specifically special elections and primaries, And what we've seen from this model is that that has been relatively pretty predictive of whether or not they're the
polls are massively off. This model, when applied, that the data we had in twenty twenty would have correctly like in the CAD, that there was something wrong with the polling, that pre election indicators like primaries and special elections weren't picking up, that the polls that should Biden up by eight or seven points were probably off. It would have
been correct then. It also would have been correct in twenty twelve in saying that the very tide polls they saw then that underestimated Democrats were not factoring in how
voters were voting on the ground through that year. And what that model says now is that there's currently no indication from how voters have been voting in primary elections like the Washington primary, which is historically predictive, and in special elections, that the polling we've seen with a slight Kamala national lead is off in the way that it was in twenty twenty. If anything, it probably maybe underestimating her by a point or a point and a half.
So that's just one sign that like these kind of canaries in the coal mine for major pro democratic polling errors at least on the national level, are not showing up right now.
Got it?
So, Josh, can you wrote a piece for your substack specifically about all of the signs. Could you lay out beyond the model, what some of the other things that people can look at for the case for underestimating Democrats.
Yeah, of course so we I think Crystal mentioned that this, and I said in the tagline of the article that it would be something of a twenty twenty two reducts and the thing to look at there isn't national polling, which was actually pretty accurate at twenty twenty two. It
was state polling. Where the argument here from some people, some very very pro Democratic people who essentially say the party can do no wrong, is that this was because there was a flood of red wave Republican polsters who were just showing the party up no matter what, and the aggregators were too credulous to keep them out of their model. Some of these were run by like these firms or run by actual high schoolers, and like they just included them, and they always showed Republicans had and
they were wrong. And that happened to a degree. But the larger thing that happened that year is that you had non partisan polsters with no collection connect the Republicans, often responding to the narratives put out by the right and in some cases showing massive swings to the right at the end of the race, and response to what seems to have been just narratives and not what was actually going on in the ground. You had in Washington, the polls prior to October that year, we're showing the
race largely what it turned out to be. The Democrat they were running for Senate won by about fifteen points. But after Republican polsters started showing a tied race and there was some chatter about it being a sleeper flip, the non partisan posters followed their lead. They didn't find leads like as close as what the Republican polsters found, but they showed a pretty significant shift to the right,
and one that didn't happen. In reality, there was no movement from the primary that year to the general election. The Democrats won by fifteen points both times. And this gets into a larger point that I think Nate Cone and The New York Times kind of proved to an extent when he talked about how posters have changed, is that posters are terrified of getting a miss like twenty twenty again. They don't think that's something they can afford
it all reputationally. Con even said like it has mental health like problems for them, where they get really upset if they miss it that badly, And they are pulling out all the stops in a lot of ways in a way in some ways that are reminiscent of pastimes when they've gotten two in their heads about a polling miss in a way that could end up getting them on the wrong side of things on the opposite way.
Yeah, I think to me, one of the most compelling data points in this direction is what you just laid out, which is that we know that posters have actually changed their methodology because they're so fearful and they've effectively used this methodology of asking people to self recall how they voted, which has in the past led to less accurate results,
consistently less accurate results. But their theory is, listen, there could be this group of infrequent and less like sort of politically engaged voters that tend to go for Donald Trump that we just cannot get in touch with, like we just cannot reflect them accurately within our polls. They attribute that, you know, potentially that was the twenty sixteen miss. Potentially that was again the twenty twenty miss. And that's
a plausible theoretical possibility. And so they're basically saying, we're just going to use this method to juice Trump's numbers, to try to Jerry rigg some way to account for this vote, this like infrequent voter that we just cannot reach and cannot model. The other possibility, and this was also laid out by Nate Cohne, is that in twenty twenty, In twenty sixteen, the miss was because posters weren't waiting
by education like college education versus non college. Okay, they fix that in twenty twenty, they haven't even bigger miss. The other theory is that twenty twenty was obviously during the pandemic, and you had a partisan difference in the way people responded to the pandemic. So you add a lot of liberal, white collar professionals at home dying to tell polster is how excited they were to vote for Democrats and that that one off phenomenon is what led to the miss in twenty twenty.
So if that's the explanation.
Then this attempt by polsters to sort of artificially juice Trump's numbers may be, you know, correcting for something that doesn't need correcting since the pandemic was such a unique time period and had this, you know, unique partisan difference in terms of how people responded to it.
You dug into the evidence.
For each of these possibilities, the just like you know, infrequent voter that you just can't model and is more overwhelmingly pro Trump than pro Democrat versus the different pandemic response bias. What evidence did you find in favor or pose to each of these theories.
Yeah, well, I think it's basically what you said, where there's the grand unified theory as as Cone calls it, which is that like there's just something about Trump voters or just impossible to contact to low social trust you'll never be able to reach them through traditional methods, and you have to find some way to represent them when you're polling. And like, I get that idea in theory, I think in a sense it is kind of like a lose state understanding that kind of exoticizes Trump voters
to a degree. I live in a purple state Georgia. Trust me when I say that Trump voters are not very quiet about who they support is essentially not now articularly ashamed of in the way they might have been eight years ago. And I just it's He calls it the patchwork theory, which I think does it a bit of a service. But that's more compelling to me because it makes sense. We know that pollsters and in twenty sixteen did not wit by education. We know that made
up for most of the missess that they made. We know in twenty twenty there was a major non response bias in favor of Democrats, something we're not necessarily seeing now.
One of the most interesting data points, and I wish they did follow up on this because it could be a huge deal, was a chart by people from the Polarization Research Study looking at partisan response rates to you gov polls, and they've found that since about like the beginning of this year, the rate of Democrats responding to their polls has gone down and the rate of republicansponding responding has gone up to the extent that they've had
to actually await Democratic respondents higher than Republican respondents. So this phenomenon, like to the extent that it might have happened before, we may not have any proof that it's
happening now. And we know that you gov has like they've shown that they've made changes to account for this kind of inverse phenomenon, this like opposite way we'd respect, but we don't know that other polsters who may not even be as aware of this are are still like trying to hedge on the side of caution and react to what happened in twenty twenty. If they're doing that properly, so quite ironically, and you can say whatever the reason
for this like might be. I think probably the funniest one is that liberal's got the mainstream media after the Biden drop out saga where they thought that they were trying to end as presidency, that they stop responding to pollsters, but like this, uh, that's what I think should be the ending of this election, because that's very fun to me.
That would be genuinely hilarious.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like they got so pissed as reclined they stopped picking up.
The That would be incredible.
I do have a question for you, Josh, because you're in Georgia.
I'm assuming you know, beyond pulling you and looking at early voting, are there any trends there that could pick up on your thesis and bear that out.
Yeah.
Well, the early voting here is a really tough one to take too much stock. In Georgia does not have party registration. You can't track it by like what the partisanship like you cant in Nevada. They do have for whatever reason. This is probably for not very great reasons.
They do track voters by race here, which can be an interesting heuristic for how the parties are doing because in Georgia, deb non whites vote Democratic and white voters vote Republican, and elections here can often be just turnout battles more than they are persuasion battles, although that's been different in recent years where the suburbs have really become big battlegrounds in the way that they were before, and we've been seeing the black vote here is about in
line with what it was in twenty twenty among habitual early voters. So among the same population that voted early in twenty twenty, it's about the same. The difference is is that there are a lot of Republicans who voted on election day in twenty twenty, a lot of white votes who are like I think that of the voters who voted on election day in twenty twenty and are voting early now, they're like over they're like seventy two
seventy five percent Republican. So we have a slightly wider like voting pool right now in Georgia then we've had it like maybe in a couple of cycles. But a lot of that is because we have a more depolarized early voting elector than we have before. There are a lot of Republicans who vote on election day and who
are voting now. There are probably some Democrats who voted early in twenty twenty because I didn't want to get COVID through mail, who are going to vote on election day, and I would say generally the number you're probably going to get about twenty six twenty seven percent black turnout, like with the way things are going here in Georgia, which isn't like ideal for Democrats, but like it's winnable.
I think Warnock one with the like was able to go run off with similar demographics in twenty twenty two.
Gotcha very interesting.
I've seen some theories about a shy Kamala voter this time, and some Democratic groups seem to be buying into this idea. I'm thinking most specifically of this ad that went viral of like women secretly, yeah vote, bucking their husband's will and voting for Kamala Harris. And these you know stickers that are popping up in women's restrooms that are like your vote secret, don't worry, you can vote for Kamala and not.
Feel bad about it.
So clearly some parts of the Democratic coalition believe that this could be a thing of like Nikki Hayley, voters who are in you know, Republican households or their husbands or Republicans who are secretly going to go and cast their ballot for Kamala Harris and may not be telling polsters the truth about the way that they're votings or the inverse of the quote unquote shy Trump voter theory back in twenty sixteen. Do you see any indications that that could be the case.
I don't know. I've heard people say that actually for a while. I remember people saying it in like twenty sixteen about Hillary and they ended up being true. Like it makes sense in theory, but like, I mean.
It's not really evidence.
Farr.
Yeah, it's kind of a bit of a fan fiction. I'd say.
My last question for you, Josh, is.
How, like, what's your confidence level that your analysis is correct and that Democrats are going to end up being underestimated or in a strong position to win this election.
Yeah. Well, I feel like I think we have a lot of evidence right now from the modeling that my friend also Josh did to like what we know these polsters have done to I think maybe over correct or correct for their miss that there shouldn't be something significantly overestimating Trump. If that happens, it's for something we have no clue about right now, and we'll only be able
to know after the election. There's nothing we know about politics or polling right now that indicates, like if that should be happening to a significant degree, unless like it's just a non response thing again, in which case polling
really like is a little screwed. Yes, But what is kind of compelling to me is that we do have past precedent for this exact kind of thing happening where posters get like really insecure and overclock in favor of the right, not in the US, but actually in the United Kingdom in twenty seventeen, the election between Jeremy Corbett and Theresa May. There polsters two years prior had incorrectly
called a labor winner a hung parliament. When the Conservatives ended up winning a majority two years later, they changed. They made a lot of changes to their polls, a lot of which were ad hoc changes, a lot like how posters are arguably making ad hoc changes now. Crystal.
You mentioned that they were doing recall to vote, which is something that can really only generously be called quite suspect, like if applied like a cone showed that if applied to past elections over the past twenty years, it would have made all of the polling in all those years less accurate, because people will tell you that they voted for people like people like saying that they voted for
the winner. So an accurate sample is going to usually get you people saying they voted more for the winner than for the loser, and by shifting that to the actual results, you're kind of just putting your thumb on the scale. British posters did a lot of that in twenty seventeen and what ended up happening was that they
ended up underestimating Labor. Every single forecaster at the end of the election called a Labor a Conservative majority, in some cases a very large conservative majority, and it only resulted in a hung parliament. Yes, the exception was Yuk of funnily enough, but so that is like a degree of like having that actual example if this is something that has happened before, makes me feel like it's something
that could happen. I won't make any guarantees. I don't think anybody can, especially in a race that's this close. But the ingredients deuce that we're there in Britten in twenty seventeen do seem to be here seven years later?
Yeah?
Very interesting.
Well, it is very interesting.
And certainly if she ends up winning and outperforming the polls, I think a lot of people are going to look back at your nelsons and say, you know this guy had it right on. So guys go subscribe to Edinger Mentum's substack, and thank you so much for joining us.
As Marie s great to thank you, Josh, It's our pleasure.
Kamala Harris is now responding to Joe Biden's quote unquote garbage comment trying to clean up his mess. Never at underestimate his ability to f things up, in the words of Barack Obama, and he certainly has done that. He's created an entire news cycle around it. So here we have Kamala responding.
Let's take a lesson. President Biden took this comment last night about garbage.
Listen. I think that, first of all, he clarified his comments. But let me be clara. I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for.
It's you hurt.
In my speech last night and continuously throughout my career, I believe that the work that I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not. And as President of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans.
Whether you vote for me or not.
Satisfy responsibility, and that's the kind of work that I've done my entire career, and I take a very serious.
He trying desperately to avoid any deplorables magic from twenty and sixteen, and she said Biden clarified his comments. If you want to know why you had to quote unquote clarify it, it's because he's so cooked that he can barely issue a single coherent sentence. So I know they played this yesterday, but you know we'll include it here. These are the full comments from Joe Biden.
Or Puerto Rico, where I'm in my home stated, they're good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating down there is just supporters.
His demonizational scene is unconsctable.
Okay, So I thought it was pretty clear the only garbage I see out there is supporters.
But he is also like slurring his words.
If you want to listen to the case for why he wasn't saying his supporters he was it hinges on an apostrophe of whether he meant Tony Hinchcliffe there as the support ers for his rhetoric.
Regardless, it's pretty clear it didn't work out so well.
And that the Kamala campaign, I mean, I saw people defending it, and one of the ways that you know that you shouldn't defend it is that Kamala herself immediately was like, I have nothing to do with that, and Jos Shapiro also went on television immediately was like, no, we're not doing that today.
Well, listen, Kama's been looking for a way to separate herself from Joe Biden. I guess she just handed her an opportunity to do exactly that. You know, Yeah, they're terrified of it being another deplorables moment. The Republicans are making as much of it as they possibly and you know.
Trump, Bretroun in a garbage truck.
The Vake Ramaswamy also like going out and picking up garbage and yeah whatever. So they're doing with it everything that they possibly can. But I mean, it strikes a few things like Number one, no surprise that Joe Biden has been asking to campaign with Kamala Harris apparently for weeks and weeks and they're like, we'll get.
Back to you on that. Yeah, that's not going to happen because this is what you get.
Number Two, how many times has she had to clean up for the men in particular who are campaigning for I mean, I think about Barack Obama going out and lecturing the brothers, you know, about how they need to vote, et cetera, et cetera, And when she's asked about it, she didn't directly, you know, like rebuke President Obama. But she also made it clear like I'm not taking anyone's vote for granted, and I have to earn the vote
of course, like this is going to be difficult. I'm also reminded of when she was in that difficult interview with Brett Baer. He tried multiple times to try to get her to have a moment where she derived Trump supporters,
and she adamantly refused to take the bait. We're also going to show you later in the show some comments from Bill Clinton out there in Michigan making somewhat less than compelling case, we'll say, to Arab American, Muslim American voters, you know, to not Lei Kamlo has been good on that topic either. She said that the main problem they have is obviously the reality of the policy that she supports, and her refusal to put on any distance from her
between herself and Joe Biden on that. But again at a time when she's trying to say, listen, I'm concerned about Palestinian civilian death. Bill Clinton goes out there and steps all over that. So you know, with this Joe Biden thing like this is also not even the first time that he's stepped on her messaging. During this particular campaign, she had a big event that she wanted to get a lot of attention, and he at the same time came out and gave a press conference, which he almost
never does. There was that issue she was in this sort of like battle with Ronda Santis over hurricane relief, and he wasn't responding to her calls, and they were into this whole thing, and then Joe Biden gets asked about He's like, Ron's been great.
He's been very responsive to me.
So, you know, coming at this moment when she just gave this big speech on the Ellipse where she made a point in that speech of trying to reach her hand out to Trump supporters, obviously the campaign is not very out about them.
No, there's much of a differences. I mean, it's like the.
Trump got a decent stunt off of it with the garbage. Sure, we have some of that video that we can go ahead and play for everybody.
Let's take a lesson.
Two hundred and fifty million people are not garbage.
I could tell you.
Who the real garbage is, but we won't say that.
How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is an honor of Kamala and Joe.
Biden is in the garbage truck to do a little press comp We'll get to the most consequential part of that.
I mean, it's just hard for me to take.
He's recreating the McDonald's magic.
Yeah, he's definitely And we have some polling later to show you that that McDonald's done got a lot of It was like the number one story that people are aware of its Yeah, because the images are so striking.
It's one of the most indelible photos of American It's up there with the tank photo. Like that's it's it's going to be burned in to my like Dewey defeats Truman.
The tank, the McDonald's thing, I'll never forget it.
You talk about the Doucocot tank, Yeah, the Douacacus. That's not a favorable comparison.
I didn't say it was good or bad. I just said it's burning burn into the mind.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean I think it's hard for obviously, it's hard for me to take seriously like all of their angst and upset over it because Trump goes out there all the time and trash's Democrats and Democratic supporters and the enemy within and whatever. So but you know, yeah, they're going to make of it what they can. I don't
think it's number one. Back in twenty sixteen, when Hillary said that, first of all, she was the one who was running, and second of all, there were people who genuinely, you know, potentially could have been swayed between Trump and Hillary Clinton. That was still a theoretical possibility.
Trump's face is so locked.
In, Like what person who sees himself as a Trump supporter was really considering Kamala Harris at this point is going to be like, oh, Joe Biden said that we're garbage, Like, forget about it. I guess the best you can hope is that it helps the juice turnout on that side. And maybe that's a maybe that's a possibility. I don't want to discount it, but like you know, I just it doesn't have quite the magic that the Deplorables moment did back in twenty sixty.
Well, yeah, I mean deplorables was everything.
And first of all, I mean, the main reason why Trump gets away with it and they don't is that because a huge part of the Trump base is literally animated by being pissed and shit on by elites and feeling that way.
They that's an entire part of it.
So in a sense, that is why it is so animating to the Trump voter and not maybe not necessarily to the Democratic voter, just because there's like a there's a much bigger Zeitgeist thing happening. Regardless, this tells us a couple of things. Why Biden is it that terrible candidate? Why Biden is cooked old and shouldn't even be in office? And the key was a i'm all immediately distanced herself
from it. But also Josh Shapiro immediately on television that night, I think maybe an hour or so after the comment was made, I mean as forcefully distanced himself as he could from it.
Let's take a listen to that.
Governor Vershoff, just what's your response to that comment from President Biden where it sounds like he's calling Trump supporters their garbage.
Yeah, Look, I had not heard that until now, Caitlin, so I'm kind of giving you my fresh reaction to it. I would never insult the good people of Pennsylvania or any Americans, even if they chose to support a candidate that I didn't support. I think the real issue here is Donald Trump and his inability to simply say comments like that are wrong, to simply stand up for his fellow Americans. He is incapable of doing that. When he had the keys to the White House before, he didn't
do it. He separated people out, he divided people. He's promised more of the same, and that's why I think he's dangerous, and that's why I'm working as hard as I can to support Kamala Harris and do everything we can to defeat Donald Trump again in Pennsylvania.
That is what a competent politician looks like. And that's that's really what it comes down to me. You know, I got no love for Joshapiro, and he won a lot Kamala Harris Trump supporters pennsylvani The thing is, remember how he responded to the assassination attempt, and he went and did a conference where he read from the from
the widow the newly like I forget them. I think it's Corey competore and he gave him a great eulogy, and he was a girl dad and all that spoke to the his what the widow read a statement from her even though literally they were killed at a Trump brother. That's what actual competent, you know, politicians look like. And then you compare that to buy it in it's just like ridiculous.
Yeah, I mean I genuinely, like, I genuinely if you look at his whole quote, like if you read the transcript in come, it's incomprehensible. Yeah, And so, like, I don't know what he was trying to say. I find it believable that because it is kind of on a character for him, he's wanted to be more like, oh, I worked with strom Thurmon, like.
I love Republicans. That's more of his mo o.
Right, So I find it believable that he didn't really mean to say that all Trump supporters are quote unquote garbage. But like, that's the thing is if you are so adult and incoherent and still occupying the office of the White House, like what are we doing here? And Alex
Thompson made that made that point effectively Axios reporters. CNN contributor Alex Thompson made that point of like, that's the really sad reality is that you can parse these words and it's like trying you need a decoder ring to try to figure out what the hell he's even talking about. Some of his supporters have also brought back up like, oh, he has a stutter. Oh my god, Like, please, come on, what are we doing here at this point? Let's listen to the point that Alex Thompson made.
Though no one here at this table knows what Joe Biden meant unless someone here has talked to Joe Biden when he made those when he made those comments, and the sad reality is that they were indecipherable because this president is no longer able to coherently and consistently articulate a message. And that's just the sad reality. That is why he's no longer the nominee because of the debate. We all saw that very clearly, and it's also why
Kamala Harris does not want him on the trail. This is a guy that just last week referred to former Representative Gabby Giffords in the past tense. She's very much alive as a person that last week said that he wanted.
To throw Donald Trump in jail and then.
Very quickly tried to backtrack and said he just politically meant to lock him up. And we are in this sad scenario where clearly Joe Biden and the aids around him that want to make him feel better, want him to be able to sort of be inserted into this race that see Kamala Harris's potential election as an affirmation of his record, but that Kamala Harris does not want him to be inserted, and it would prefer that he basically be absent. This last week.
I love how he had you could hear a pin drop on.
That in that yea, because how can you how can you disagree with any of that? And I agree with Nate Silver who says there should be a lot more journalistic scrutiny of his capability to function in this job, because yeah, I mean, he's almost not out of there, but we still got months to go. Well, he is still president of the United States, and he is so addled that he can't even in the one CNN appearance that he did competently deliver a basic point and a
basic message. Like, the other thing that's insane to me is that you still have people out there running around like maybe he would have been a better candidate and I don't know why we switch. And if you go back, especially at the time, the number of Democratic partisans who were like, no, we got to stick with Joe, and Joe's great and he's going to be way more electable. Like these people should never be taken seriously again, because
this this is not new, right. I mean, we all saw the debate, which was shocking, But even before the debate, how long have we been.
Covering years, literally years.
His rapid decline. So I think it is a tremendous journalistic fit. Look, I get it, it's the election, and so you know, there's a lot of coverage of Kamlin
Trump and what they're doing, and that's all justified. But the fact that when Biden decided to step out of the race, that almost all the scrutiny about his age and capability went away, even though he's still the guy with the nuclear codes, you know, I do think that that is a tremendous a tremendous failure and dramatic inadequacy of the process.
He is the most incapacitated president in office. Sin's like Woodrow Wilson, and you know it maybe just like at that time, they didn't want to cover it and his wife was running the White House and all of that. I think we're seen very similar dynamics to this. Five years from now, we'll get the whole inside story from Jake Sullivan and Anthony Blincoln about what it was really like.
You know, he'll probably have to like die, you know eventually before you can tell the real truth about what happened. And then it's it's going to be insane, Like whenever that book comes out, it's, oh my god. And the worst part is is that we won't even be surprised by any of it. All right, let's move on to Madison Square Garden, and there's been quite a lot of discussion there about the or men of grbage Gate. Garbage Gate, that's right, I like that Puerto Rico Gate. You could
also call hingecliff Gate. You could take it back as far as he wants. So we've got a couple of Republicans actually who came out to criticize first was Nikki Haley, who took to Fox News to critique the Trump campaign.
Let's take a listen.
They were right to denounce the comedian. They need to go and tell Puerto Ricans how much you know they do value them. They need to tell Latino's that. But they also need to look at how they're talking about women. I mean that this romance and this masculinity stuff, I mean it borders on edgy to the point that it's
going to make women uncomfortable. You know, you've got affiliated packs that are doing commercials about calling Kamala the sea word, or you had speakers at Madison Square Gardens, you know, referring to her and her pimps. That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to
win people who are concerned about Trump style. This is a time to talk about the economy, This is the time to talk about immigration, this is the time to talk about national security, and this is the time to talk about Kamwa Harris.
So you could see there.
I mean my take actionally Crystal was I think she's betting on a Trump loss. That's my guess from this clip, because I actually spoke to some others, people who are concerned but who are your friend and they want to help you win. They call you behind the scenes, right, they don't want to give the other side ammunition. But when you're betting on a loss, you take to the TV and you're like, well, they need to do a better job reaching out to women, and this isn't this.
But of course I still want him to win because I'm working on policy, trying to cover her bases. This seemed like a soft twenty twenty eight launch just from what I could tell. She's not a commentator, she's a politician, right. She also has not she's been rejected by the Trump campaign effectively, will not campaign with him. It looks like up until election day they previously had thought that they might. But there's still quite a bit of bad blood between
the two camps. So there's quite a bit of jocking that's also happening.
Yes, yeah, I think the comments are accurate, but they're also motivated because it's not just her positioning herself for what comes next, and she fancies herself potentially the next Republican contenderlution, but whatever, that's how she's thinking. And she also is bitter because to your point about you know, you call him behind the scenes, him.
Not picking up those calls.
Yeah, that has made herself available to go a campaign for him, and he's like no. And in fact, when he and I think this is foolish by the way on his part, because clearly the Kamala campaign thinks whether they're right about this or not, there's a possibility that they're right about it, that there are some of those Nikki Haley primary voters who are potential persuadable targets for them.
They have made a very concerted effort. That's like the bulk of their campaign is a concerted effort to reach out to those voters. And recently, when Trump was asked about Nicki Haley on a Fox and Friends or some thing, rather than trying to appeal to them, he trashes Nicky Haley and rags about how much he beat her by
et cetera, et cetera. So you know, I mean, this is just Trump and the way he operates, and his ego always comes first, even when it's totally inadvisable from any sort of a rational campaign perspective, like what would it hurt you to have her come and be on the stage with you. She's willing to do it, etc. It's certainly not going to be a loss, and potentially it's a gain for you, but that's that's just not in him to do so. I think the Yale is
right fundamentally in her comments. We've played that the Megan Kelly comments in a moment, which are are very similar.
She had a very similar take.
You had Tommy Laren earlier on critical of some of the lack of outreach to women, and you know, it really has. They have actually primarily turned it into a real battle of the sexes kind of a vibe. And we've done a lot of scrutiny. There's been a lot of conversation about Kamala Harris knowing to do better with men. She had that like hop like moment with Russian Whitmer, et cetera, et cetera. And you see them trying to
make some efforts. You see her going on with you know, Shannon Sharp on Club Shasha, you see her going on The Shade Room and some of these like more male dominated podcasts. You don't really see equivalent outreach from the Trump side, like he didn't go on with Brene Brown or whoever the you know, and Kamala did, by the way,
some feat more female dominated spaces. Instead, they've just consistently leaned into the like camp masculinity theme that you saw at the R and C and that you certainly saw in Madison Square, Garden, Hule Cogan, Dana White, you know that whole sense. And so you have a few women in the party at least saying and now actually Cernovich and Charlie Kirk as well saying like, eh, this might be a little bit of an issue.
They're talking about the vote, right.
Yeah, but the downstream of the bro this.
Is where I'm like, I don't think that she's necessarily right, like in terms of what does she say in terms of like, this is not the way to win women. I mean that also presumes like what is the correct way to quote unquote win women? Like that just seems like a very I don't know, it doesn't seem like it's a comment that is directed in any reality. If we look at quote unquote women voters, they're voting on the issue of abortion.
You can't win on the issue of abortion.
Your best case scenario is to win men, drive up the margin, and then just hope that married women come along as they have in the past. I think in twenty sixteen and in twenty twenty to make sure that you don't get drowned out. That's part of the reason
that I think. Didn't you reference those ads where it's like, women, it's okay to lie to your husband or what, which is, by the way, psychotic and weird, and if you're in a marriage, we had to lie to your husband or your wife your body for marriage.
You got to get out, all right, let me just tell you that right now.
I saw I tweet about this too, where a woman was saying like, she who knows if this is even accurate, but that like every four years as hell because her husband's a big Trump supporter and she's not. And he was like, so where are you gonna move if Trump wins again? I'm like, what kind of a marriage is this?
Jesus Christ to.
Her, get out to him, you're a loser. You're like sir, and vice versa. If you're aiding your husband or whatever, you're also a loser.
I just would say, and uh, and then we'll play the Megan Kelly comments and get her take on this as well. Nikki Haley reference to the fact that you know you had multiple sort of like sexually lude jokes made at Kamala Harris's expense, You had the other Joe from Tony Hinchcliff that we haven't even played as about, like you know, Latino's coming inside, and you have Elon Musk's super pack literally running an ad insinuating Kamala Harris
is the C word. So you know, I certainly there are some women that are just voting on abortion.
That's it.
They're not going to change their mind. It's done, it's over, there's nothing they can say about it. But there are also are some norm and I know some of these women normy like previously voter Republican women who the tone is in the crassness is a problem where they're not particularly like ideologically or issue focused. And so when that's
the entire vibe of the campaign. In the same way, I think the Democrat at times, with like all the talk about toxic masculinity, et cetera, have put out the vibe of like this is just not really a place for you if you're you know.
A white dude bro.
That's the vibe that women are getting from these events of like this is just not really like this is just not really a place for me, Like this is not you're not putting out welcoming vibes, and I'm put off by you know, the quote unquote locker room talk is really not for me. It's in a locker room with other men. That's the reason why it's quote unquote locker room talk.
But he did bring white women in twenty sixteen, you know, that's why, and that's fact.
But that's one But that's one of the groups that's
been edging away from him. Sure, and there's very real Posmost of the polling suggests that Kamala Harrison Will is in position to potentially win white women this time around, and certainly she's banking on she's betting on suburban women, which would be, you know, the type of people that Nikki Haley is most in touch with and is thinking about with these comments just to show you, like, you know, also Megan Kelly, who's also very you know, very strong
Trump supporter, certainly this time around, she also had some similar concerns about the tone of the MSG rally.
Let's take a listen to what she had to say.
Trump was not well served by those around him last night.
It wasn't a Nazi rally. All that's nonsense.
But I'm telling you, even for me and I voted for Donald Trump last week. It was too grotastic, Okay, it was you're trying to win an election in which you're hemorrhaging female voters. Maybe when you present in front of hundreds of thousands, at least at Madison Square Garden, you clean up the bro talk just a little so you don't alienate women in the middle of America who are already on the fence about Republicans. Do they have
no women advising their campaign? Is there no actual woman sitting behind the scenes coming up with the guest lineup and saying, let's just have a word with the guy who are going to be speaking about. This isn't the bar, this isn't their living room. This is a campaign. This is politics. We're trying to get him elected. We don't need to rally the base or guys anymore. And it's not helpful even if we do want to rally the base or guys, to go full off color insults to
different racial groups and so on. I get it, Trust me, nothing that was said offended me. I'm almost unoffendable. But I understand how this plays, especially with women, and it was an e ft up choice.
I do love how it's never terms fault. It's always he's.
Failed by that.
He can never fail. He's failed by the people around now.
But sure I agree with her.
Honestly, I think the base strategy is the one that works. I mean, women are predomint college educated women or the Kamala base. That's where they're going after Liz Change and all that. Bros Are the basically the Republican base, gen z split amongst men.
That's what you need now, look right.
Smart, But Ryan's sweet thing on the margins.
Ryan Sweet, that you read is accurate and it is one where it could be scary.
Right, So I write it again since there was a more segment. Go ahead, keep talking, I'll pull it up.
Fine.
Yeah, it's something about like dudes don't have the capacity.
The organizational capacity, he says. I love my dudes. But if there is a nationwide contest between men and women, that goes to the group that managed to show up at the right place, fill out their forms on time, and do all those things, the men would need to start with an advantage of several millions to be competitive. Don't come at me. Those are Ryan Grimm's words. You can take it up with him. I'm not being sexist against men.
That's fair.
It's just one of those where I think that this is a base turnout election. I don't think that this is necessarily like, look, you're right, you know everything with margins, et cetera. But if you won't up your margin with men enough, then that actually is one that goes to the Trump campaign strategy. They just think that they're literally not winnable, and I honestly think they're probably correct at this point, Like we're so bifurcated in terms of also the issue set that we look at for men and
women are completely at odds. Immigration and the economy way higher for men and for women.
Abortion is just so sky high.
Like what can you possibly say as a Republican to win that type of voter over I mean, tone is really not going to come.
Maybe I am.
Totally wrong, Okay, I really I might be. That said, the data tells us that if you drive up the margin with men, you will still get a substantial portion of married conservative women to come with you.
That's enough to win the election. You don't necessarily have to win, you know, like.
Single ladies are voting for trumpet like or sorry for Kamma, like a forty percent margin.
It's crazy if you look at it.
I mean, by the way, anthropologically, none of this is good, but that's a separate story. Like, if you're purely trying to win, that's what I would do.
Massive divide between college educated women and non college educated men.
Yes, but you know, I.
Mean the numbers are what they are. In terms of every election, women vote more than men. You're going to pick one side, you know, but Ryan's comments, putting Ryan's comments aside. If you're going to pick one side of the Battle of the sexes to be on, just based on the fact that women always vote high rates the men, you would want to be on the side women.
So listen, how much is I don't know.
I mean, you're right, like the Trump's space is so locked in people, but we're talking about.
A game of inches.
So if you have some people who are on the fence, reminding them of everything that comes with Trump, and you know, there are a lot of like normy women out there, normally people in general who are just like, oh, you know, this is just gross.
I don't know.
I do think her point too about he doesn't have any well he does this Susie Wilds on the campaign.
She's literally the number two on the camp.
I mean, there are women's voices that are in there, but clearly, whereas the comment team has really tried to minimize their losses with men and try to keep as many, especially black and brown men in the tent as they possibly can, there has not been similar outreach from the Trump campaign. And you're right that it is consistent with
two different strategies. The common strategy if you look at the ad campaign that's been run, if you look at the like the Liz training out region, all those stuff, it has really been an attempt at persuasion, and the Trump campaign has been very much an attempt at like, let's get some of these infrequent voters out, let's drive up turn out in the base. And like I said, you see that in closing ads where the Trump campaign's
going all in on these like culture war issues. The Kamala campaign is featuring a lot of former Republicans who are voting for her, and they're doing like more of a class war. He's a billionaire, he's not for you, et cetera, et cetera. So you know, I guess that's that's the bet that both campaigns are placing.
We'll see, We're going.
To see, let's stick with the MSG theme. There was some more quote unquote fallout here. We have a Nikki Jam. He's a reggae tone star, he's half Puerto Rican. He has now withdrawn his endorsement of Donald Trump. He said he thought Trump would be good for the economy, but he cannot look past the disrespect that has now been shown to Puerto Rico.
So I don't know.
I mean, everyone thinks that this stuff will be consequential. They're like, oh, bet Bunny is endorsed Kamla again. I have no idea. I find it very difficult to believe that if you're Puerto Rican, who is going to vote for Trump? Tony hinchclub at a Trump rally, made a joke about Puerto Rico that isn't enough for you to switch your boat.
Maybe it's enough for Nikki Jam.
It just seems a little weird to me, especially if you live in the Continental US. You don't even live in Puerto Rico. What are you so upset about? So anyway, that's me.
I think the case for which I don't know, but the case for it mattering is number one in Philly. The places in the actual city of Philadelphia that had moved the most to the right were also the most heavily Puerto Rican parts of the city. And there's something like half a million Puerto Ricans in the in the state of Pennsylvania. So obviously you know that's an important constituency. And then it's the issue, isn't just this common? It reminds of the like Trump Hurricane Maria response and sort
of brings up those memories, et cetera. Because I mean, I don't know, I like you. When I'm looking at this nicky jam thing, I'm like, really, it didn't already like this guy was.
Okay, the joke's on you, bro. You like an idiot, And I'll say it like it's like, oh, I thought I never thought this could ever happen.
Who did you think this was what's happening here? But it's better for the economy. Why does it matter?
Huh So your feelings about Puerto Rico are more important than the economy, then you're an idiot. Okay, it must be nice to be a rich reggaetne star.
I mean, I feel like it's reasonable for people to feel like, oh, you just like hate me and the you know place him from and whatever, like disrespect.
You know Hinchcliffe thing.
It's not even like Trump said, Hurricane Rie is a way more legit reason by the way to be upset about it. But clearly Nicky didn't think about that whenever he was up on the stage. So okay, I'll just leave it at that.
So anyway, again, it's one of these micro stories that after election day we may look back and be like, oh, well, this doesn't matter at all, or we may look back and be like, damn, Trump lost Pennsylvania about like five thousand votes, and maybe this was the difference maker right there.
Which would be really crazy. But you just never know.
How pray that that doesn't happen, just so I don't have to be subjected to this discourse for another three years. Let's continue with Trump. He was asked about Tony Hinchcliff in the garbage truck. Take a listen.
I don't know anything about the comedian. I don't know who he is.
I've never seen him.
I heard he made a statement, but it was just a statement that he made.
He's a comedian.
What can I tell you. I know nothing about him.
I don't know why he's there.
You put comedians up and I guess you went on the show.
I don't know who he is one of the most classic Trumps of all time.
I don't even know who.
I don't even know who the guy is.
Well, really never heard. It was at your rally and the team vetted his comments.
He also said that about he continues to say about Mark Robinson.
He goes, I don't know what you're talking about.
He did, didn't he call him like a modern day MLK junior or something like that.
You're telling me for the first time.
Yeah, it's just it's not really It's obviously not particularly credible, but it shows you that many people have also pointed out that like, if Trump's had said the same thing, he would get away with it and everyone would double down on it and no one would criticize it. But only Trump can get away with those things. And so even the campaign obviously, you know, in similar way that Kama was distancing herself from the Biden comments, like they
realize it's a problem. Republicans in Florida ran away from it immediately, and other Republicans across the country, and Trump himself is like, wow, I don't even know who this guy is, Like, you know this. They clearly recognize this is a bit of a.
Problem for them.
They did the Allentown rally, made sure to have lots of Puerto Ricans there to validate on stage whatever, so they know it is a potential issue. Is it a reality electoral issue?
We'll find out him bingo, all right, let's continue. Let's put this up on the screen. Just the last thing on this. So in terms of these stunts, one of the reasons kind of interesting is Data for Progress asked about people who had seen the recent news about certain events in the campaign. Number one was actually Trump serving fries at McDonald's. In terms of the meme mobility of that, you only had seventeen percent of voters who said they
had heard nothing at all about it. Carris calling Trump a fascist, you only had twenty one percent who had heard nothing about it. But actually Madison Square Garden was number three. So I have you know again, Americans, you guys, you fascinate me every day. What breaks through and what doesn't?
Why that one that one really crystal. It broke through more than enemy from within, what it broke through more than Trump doing on Joe Rogan, which you heard some thirty two percent of people saying never heard about it, Harri's campaigning with Liz Cheney.
I mean, what like how people.
Consume the news, what they choose to like click on and send to their friends. I again will never understand, but that does show you that sometimes things just break through for reasons that are far beyond our.
Just some things just take off.
See McDonald's.
I guess that's just an MSG, like what you know, that's the one where I don't understand it anyway, all right, let's continue. Joe Rogan actually Rogan recently, he was talking on his own podcast about the Tony Hinchcliff comments, and he actually made some interesting comments, specifically about how he had warned Tony in the past that that joke was gonna get him stabbed.
Let's take a listen.
I don't really blame Tony though, because Tony is what Tony is, right, Like, if you want an insult, call make Tony is the best in the world.
That's literally his His his great specialty is roasting.
Right, So if you booked Tony Hinchcliffe, Tony Hinchcliff is going to be Tony Hinchcliff exactly. So whoever fucking booked him, that's the person that's that's made the mistakes.
Booked him but apparently went over his material.
Did they go over his materials?
Oh my, this is what I've read on the internet, so it must be true.
In the words of Donald Trump, someone's getting fired.
Man.
I'm gonna tell you that joke kills at comedy clubs.
I don't like the joke.
It kills. And I said to him, I don't. It's just like if you're Puerto Rican and you hear that in the eudis like, oh, it's a funny joke. The joke does well. But I said to him, I go, dude, that's the one's gonna get you stabbed. Really yes, And he used to talk about it on stage, saying, Joe Rogan always says, that's the one's gonna get me stabbed, Like wow, which is so great. Here's what's where that joke comes from. Tony is actually obsessed with the Pacific
garbage patch. And unlike the fact that we just throw it like we were talking about like recycling, Like the recycling doesn't work. They don't do it. Most of your bottles and you're thrown in recycling, they get put in landfills. So there's a landfill in Puerto Rico that's way overflowed. Puerto Rico has a legitimate trash problem because they're on an island like where you're gonna put it, right, there's all these people living on that island where you're gonna
put it, and so they have landfills. Their landfills are way over capacity. So that's where the joke came from, right, Like the joke came from, like Tony being environmentally conscious, well.
Laid down a little bit of that battle.
Could make a little more since I thought i'd just be I.
Will say, I've seen Tony a couple of times. I've never heard the Puerto Rico joke. I've seen him do. I've seen his act quite a few times. I have not heard that one, although I guess I haven't been lostin in quite a while. But it is funny that were Even Rogan himself was like, that's a joke that's going to get you stabbed.
Yeah, and he said I don't like the joke, but you know, I was environmentally conscious that.
He does it. Okay, this was funny.
I put this up on the screen Apparently this was some of the backs, which also indicated that he had delivered it, you know, in clubs before. He says it was not the first time Hinchcliff had used the Porto Rico line. He practiced at the Stan Comedy Club in New York City, where he made a surprise appearance Saturday night. According to an NBC News producer who happened to be there, the joke did not draw laughs, just a handful of awkward chuckles. And you guys will recall at the rally too,
it bombed. No one was like just a little bit of nervous laughter.
Maybe.
Hinchcliffe told the audience he would be performing at the Madison Square Garden rally the next day, and said multiple times during his routine that he would get a better reaction tomorrow at the rally. Famous last words, this person opines, I like that Tony bombed at the rally, being like this usually does better at clubs, after he bombed at the club, saying this is going to kill at the rally.
So listen, you know, there's a lot of Puerto Ricans in New York City, and maybe it's just not really the location for this line to that's a work out for he guys.
He got to keep saying it in Austin, Texas, where Mexicans are allowed to laugh at Puerto Ricans.
That's that's what you got to keep doing. You got to know your demographics, Tony.
Yeah, I do have to say, like I do kind of agree with a if it's it really is the fault of the Trump campaign, Like it really is there because look at Tony Hinchcliffe's.
Body of work. That's correct, like if.
You don't want and they vetted, they vetted his remarks.
And reportedly he was planning to call Kama Harris the C word and they were like that's too far. But everything else and not just this Puerto Rico joke they left in. So I mean, I do sort of agree that the blame really lies at the feet of the Trump campaign for thinking that this was a good idea, knowing like looking at his body of work and being like, yes, this is a great thing to have at our political rally because of course he's going to do the thing that he does.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I have no idea why it committe.
I think I said that too, even though I'm not you know whatever, I still think A lot of it is overblown. I don't know why you would have a comedian at a freaking rally period, Like, there's really no reason for it. Yeah, it has no precedence. It's not even one of those like old timey things that people used to do to like jazz up the crowd.
They used to just have bands. We should bring that back, right, we should have band.
It's also like, if you want to be edgy in that context, wouldn't you, as a roast comedian go after some of the like people that are there.
Like that's the thing that really is like you know, I.
Mean he hit some of the core constitutions easy went after some what did he tell some Jewish jokes? And he was telling some uh there there was there was some there. I think that well again and also a lot of it didn't hit land version Like.
That's the whole thing of roast is like the Tom Brady Like Tom Brady's right there and you're saying some wild shit to his face instead of like, here's some demographic groups that we all hate, right, let's let's go after them. So anyway, that's uh, this Rogan's take on it.
There you go
A