[MUSIC] >> Bill Whelan: It's Wednesday, November 6, 2023, and welcome back to Matters of Policy and Politics, a Hoover Institution podcast devoted to governance and balance and power here in America and around the world. I'm Bill Whelan. I'm the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter distinguished policy fellow in journalism here at the Hoover Institution. While that title is mine and mine alone, I'm not the only Hoover fellow podcasting these days.
If you don't believe me, go to our website, which is hoover.org. Click on the tab at the top of the homepage it says commentary. Score lower to where it says multimedia and under audio podcast about 15 or 16 pop up. My podcast is at the top of the list, and I think that's a reflection on the fact that I strive to get the best of the brightest from the Hoover Institution on this podcast, this episode being no exception. My guests today are David Brady and Doug Rivers.
Dave Brady is the Hoover Institution's Davies family senior fellow emeritus and the Bowen H and Janice Arthur McCoy professor of political science in the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Doug Rivers is a Hoover Institution senior fellow and a Stanford University political scientist. He's also the chief scientist at UGOB PLC, a global polling firm. They're here today to talk about the latest in politics and public opinion. Gentlemen, thanks for coming on the podcast.
>> Doug Rivers: Thanks, Bill. >> Bill Whelan: So I agonized about wanting to bring you guys on this podcast because the question is, when is it too soon to talk about 2024? And I know there are those people who will talk about 2024 the moment the 2020 election is over. The 2022 election. But here's where I looked at it. I figured it this way. We have passed Labor Day now, which is traditionally, back in the old days, a jumpstart for the presidential election. There's been one republican debate.
There's a second one three weeks from today at the Reagan Library, CB Valley in southern California. We are 425 days away from November 5, 2024, when we decide on the next president. So a good time to talk about public opinion. So, since the two of you dabble in polling, I wanna throw a poll at you two to start this off. And this is the question about what kind of election we're looking at here right now. So here goes. Is this election A, choice number one, uncharted territory.
Uncharted territory in this regard, you have an incumbent president, is in the eighties who is facing, likely will face a twice impeached former president, currently facing 90 plus felony counts in four different trials. Not to mention he lost a judgment at defamation trial earlier today, or Dave and Doug, is the answer of B. This is the Yogi Berra election, who Yogi maybe said one time, but he's quoted office as having said it's, quote, deja vu all over again.
Deja vu all over again, meaning that it's September 2023. That's much the same as September 2015. Trump is the front runner in a large Republican field, but they're fundamentally deep and bothering questions about his electability. Meanwhile, the likely democratic nominee, and you can swap out Bernie Sanders or RFK junior.
I guess you wanna play out this scenario, but Joe Biden, the likely democratic nominee, has problems of his own age, inflation, maybe character of his son's legal problems continue. Or is the answer to this very complicated poll, gentleman, C. And it's both A and B. So, Doug, you start. Is the answer A, uncharted territory? B, it's the Yogi bear election. Or is it C, a combination of A and B? >> Doug Rivers: Could you repeat the question again, Bill? Just kidding.
>> Bill Whelan: Sure, I got another five minutes to kill [LAUGH]. >> Doug Rivers: I'm gonna go with Yogi Berra. What we're seeing at the moment looks like a repeat of 2020, a very close election between Biden and Trump. I think it's almost certain that they will be the nominees for each party. And the polling at the moment shows it's at least as tight as 2020 was, maybe tighter. >> Bill Whelan: What do you think, Dave, A, B, or C?
>> David Brady: I'm going with problem A. And the reason is I think that given the weaknesses of both candidates in 2016, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, when we know history of polling, they were the two most unpopular candidates to run. And now we're gonna have the same thing again. But the winner of the election, it strikes me, will have a credibility problem in the country as whoever wins the other side is gonna think it was illegitimate.
And that strikes me as perhaps the most important thing. And it's not clear to me exactly what that will mean for the ability of the president to manage foreign affairs, how will that affect domestic affairs? But that strikes me as even if what Doug says and probably is true about the Yogi Berra election, the bigger question for me is this credibility of the president as a result of the 2024 election. >> Doug Rivers: [INAUDIBLE] Aftermath of the 2024 election is quite uncertainty.
>> Bill Whelan: Okay, I'm glad you mentioned character for this regard. You look at polls right now, and Trump leads the GOP field, by a wild march. And Wall Street Journal had a poll out earlier this week Trump is the first choice among 59% of primary voters. Rod DeSantis was second at 13%. Nikki Haley was third at 8%. The DeSantis Trump divide back in April was 4824. So he's built upon that. You look on the democratic side, polling is kind of scant on that.
But I looked at the real clear politics average, and it gives Biden a 53 point lead over RFK junior. Meanwhile, you look at the Associated Press NORC center for Public Affairs Research poll, which did a little different kind of poll, guys, they did word association, and here are the words they came up with, Trump. Corrupt, crooked, bad, liar, dishonest. They then played the same word sampling with Biden. They came up with old, outdated, slow, confused corruption and crooked.
So, Doug, explain the disconnect with me how these two guys could be lapping the field, but at the same time, they get these rotten reviews when it comes to adjectives. >> Doug Rivers: A little hint, Bill, it wasn't the same people saying crooked and corrupt about Trump and Biden. >> Bill Whelan: All right, so who are these people supporting them, and who are these people who are giving the bad reviews?
>> Doug Rivers: Yeah, so the remarkable thing about Trump is how popular he is among the Republican base, that Trump is more popular among Republicans than Biden is among Democrats. And while Biden has his problems, he's a little on the older side. He doesn't have any, [LAUGH] of the obvious problems of Trump. Yet the Republican base is extremely enthusiastic about Trump.
And it's not one third of the base, it's half of Republican voters are very enthusiastic about Trump, and most of the remainder will vote for him even if he isn't their first choice. Biden's problem is a little different. First, I mean, Biden's approval among Democrats or favorability is lower than Trump's is among Republicans. Second, a lot of Democrats would prefer someone else other than Biden to be the nominee, though, again, there's no consensus alternative.
I think Biden's problem is he just needs to mobilize the democratic base and win enough independence and then he can get reelected. Trump's problem is he's running a campaign that puts him at a ceiling that's probably around low forties as a percentage of the vote, and he's not doing anything to expand his support to marginal groups. >> David Brady: If you had a gun at your head now and bet on what would happen in the election, I think what Doug just said is fully correct.
But I do want to point out one thing about how, as we talked about a little bit earlier, Bill, before Doug got on. And that was the question of how is it that with all these people against these two guys, they're still leading? And if you break down the Democratic Party by who's likely to vote in a primary? So strong Democrats are much more likely to vote in a primary than not very strong or lean Democrats.
And the numbers there are interesting, about 50% of strong Democrats want Biden to run again, and less than 30% say he shouldn't run again. Among not very strong Democrats, it's the opposite, 25 56. And among lean Democrats, it's 34% want him to run and 46% don't. And for Donald Trump, just as Doug said, among strong Republicans, people most likely to vote in the primary, he's over 60% to 20% that want him to run again.
While it may be the case that lots of American independents, I'll give it one, independents are, 10% of independents say they want Biden to run again, 73% say no. And the same thing is true for Trump, independents don't want them to run. So the bottom line is it is the primary voters and the likely primary voters, strong Democrats and strong Republicans, that are gonna nominate Biden and are gonna nominate Trump unless something miraculous happens.
>> Bill Whelan: Yeah, Doug, there was news on the two pieces of news on the Trump legal front today. One I mentioned in my rather lengthy poll question, which was that in the New York defamation case he was ruled against, he has to cough up more money in that one. But also in the Georgia case, the prosecutor came forward today and she revealed two rather interesting pieces of information. One is that she plans to call 150 witnesses. But secondly, she sees the trial lasting four months.
Now, Doug, you have been polling on Trump in legal matters. CB's YouGov had a national poll out in early August, and it showed that just over half of americans agree with Trump the idea of illegal, unconstitutional activities. The question here, Doug, is Trump's legal activities, I mean, he goes to trial the day before Super Tuesday in March. If he's on trial in Georgia every day, this is the OJ trial on steroids, it seems to be, in terms of grasping the American public.
How do you see the legal problems of Trump overshadowing this election? >> Doug Rivers: Yeah, so I'm not a legal expert or a lawyer, but my impression is the chances of any of these cases going to trial before the election are relatively low. The dates we have at the moment are scheduled dates. So you should think of them as the earliest possible time they could go to trial.
If, for example, Trump tries to remove the Georgia case to federal court, that's gonna slow down the timetable, and then there'll be various appeals and so forth of decisions of the trial court that would potentially delay matters. So I think if people are expecting these trials to actually occur in the springtime, I think they're likely to be disappointed. But for the sake of argument, suppose they do happen.
We are definitely in uncharted territory where one candidate will not be campaigning, but will be receiving all the media attention. There's nothing the other Republican candidates can possibly do that will compete with a televised trial in Georgia. It would be all Trump all day long sitting in the courtroom. Does that help them? Probably not with swing voters, but so far it seems like it hasn't hurt and if anything, has strengthened them a bit among the Republican base.
>> Bill Whelan: Yeah, but, Dave, here we have this odd conflict. So again, going back to Doug's CBS YouGov poll, where he found that over half of Americans agreed that Trump tried to stay out of office after the 2020 election. And the phrase in Doug's poll is, quote, through illegal and unconstitutional activities. At the same time, there's a rally around the flag effect every time Trump has something legally thrown into or he's never strengthened a Republican primary.
So how is this gonna translate in the general election, though, Dave? >> David Brady: Well, the rallies among his backers, and he's picked up some extra backers. In regard to how it would translate into the election, I did see a poll that said over 40% of Republicans said that if Trump was convicted, they wouldn't vote for him. I don't know how meaningful that is.
But in terms of the elections, the Democrats have bet everything that Donald Trump will be the nominee because I don't think Joe Biden could beat anybody else. But the bet is that he'll beat Donald Trump for the reasons that Doug suggested earlier, that when push comes to shove, they'll come down and they'll say, well, Biden, you're not the greatest guy, but he's better than Trump. We can't take another four years. We can't take another four years of Trump.
And again, it'll be nip and tuck, and it'll come down to four or five states and probably 50 or 100,000 votes. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, Doug, put on your pollster hat for a second, and I want you to go through three issues for me, and you rank them in terms of importance this election.
One is abortion, cuz we're now in a post-Dobbs era of elections where Democrats could run very hard on the idea of Republicans trying to take away abortion rights, b would be inflation, and c would be the president's age. So how would you rank those? >> Doug Rivers: The number one issue will be the president's age. There's nothing Biden can do about it to change it. Even among Democrats, there's a lot of queasiness about how old Biden is. So as an issue, it's much more effective.
Abortion is, there are people on either side, the majority of the population is pro choice. There's a smaller, committed set of pro life voters, so abortion tends to benefit Democrats somewhat. But in a race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I don't think most people think Trump, despite appointing three Supreme Court justices, really has his heart in the Republican position on abortion. >> Bill Whelan: Dave, what do you think?
>> David Brady: I think it depends on if you take the, and some of the experiments Doug's run, if you take the strong Texas sort of position on abortion, then I think it hurts Republicans to 3, 3.5%. If you go to the six week, it hurts them less. And if you go to the 15 weeks, which is actually three weeks longer than the original Roe decision, it looks like that doesn't hurt him much. So I think the campaign abortion will be there.
And because the Republicans won't have tied it together, Democrats will be able to campaign against strict abortion and it'll help them some. I guess I'm a little confused as to why Doug thinks age. I took what he said earlier to be all other things equal. If the election were held today, Biden would win. And if the number one issue is his age, I don't see why is that make him a winner. You think it'll be a number one issue and people won't care ultimately.
>> Doug Rivers: Well, Democrats will have to get over it, but it's going to be the. The crux of the campaign, I think. >> David Brady: Listen, Democrats, the fact is, if you put him in, what do they call those things where Ted Williams is cryogenic or whatever, they, [LAUGH] put you one of those things? If he was in one of those, Democrats are going to vote for him over Trump under any circumstances, >> Doug Rivers: No you're right. >> David Brady: And Republicans are going to vote for Trump.
So the question is, it's going to come down to- >> Doug Rivers: He's better amongst independence. Let me come back to the one issue I didn't mention. There was inflation. >> Bill Whelan: Yes. >> Doug Rivers: So objectively, inflation has come way down from where it was. So we were at 8% of inflation a year ago, and we're at less than half that at the moment in the polling, inflation was the most important issue in March of this year with 23%.
It's still the most important issue when you ask people that, but it's down to 17%. So I think inflation is diminishing as a problem. It's certainly not so much in the news as it was then. But the interesting thing is how Biden is not getting any credit at the moment for an improving economy. >> Bill Whelan: This is his effort to go out and pitch Bidenomics, right? >> Doug Rivers: Well, that's their plan. We'll see how well they do it. >> David Brady: I guess I don't find that at all surprising.
>> Doug Rivers: Well, I say-. >> David Brady: Food and gas. >> Doug Rivers: If you go back to our conversation a year ago, you'd say, well, we think there's a likelihood that we're going to be in a recession in 2024. I think the consensus economic forecast still has a bit of a slowdown next year. But I don't think anyone is expecting a really bad recession at the moment. Biden's economic numbers really haven't moved much.
If you ask people the state of the economy, whether it's excellent, good, fair, or poor, Democrats are pretty much at the same place now they were six months ago. About 44% to 46% say it's excellent or good, 20% to 21% say it's poor. Republicans, on the other hand, have dropped from 15%, saying it was excellent or good in March to 8% now. And the percentage saying it's poor has risen from 61% to 72%. >> David Brady: All that matters are independents who think that the economy is not doing well.
>> Doug Rivers: Yeah, so among independents in March, 19% thought the economy was excellent or good. That's dropped to 16%. And the percentage saying poor has risen from 44 to 53. Now, the poor ones, I think, are largely Republicans. Among independents, a fair fraction of the independents are leaners one way or the other and fairly partisan. But it's certainly the case that Biden has not gotten any bump from the economy.
My guess is between now and the fall of next year, Biden could get a bump from an improving economy that could offset his liabilities. >> David Brady: I don't disagree, but one of the ways that they count the statistics, they don't include food and gas, etc, in there. And it is the case that when you go to the grocery store, eggs are higher than they were and so on. But as I believe the way the economists measure, it is a better way. Those short term factors, I think they'll come down.
And so I think, I agree that inflation will be less of an issue. And I think that Biden may be able to pick up some support for a better economy. I don't think Biden economics is going to do it. >> Doug Rivers: There is one silver lining I noticed in the numbers. We asked a question about the trend in the economy. Is the economy getting better or worse?
So over the last six months, the percentage thing is getting better has risen from 23% to 32% among Democrats, from 8t to 12% among independents. It's actually gone the other way among Republicans, dropping from five to three. 12% saying the economy is getting better among independents is not a great number, but it's certainly better than 8%. >> David Brady: It's going, but the point is it's going the right direction.
Yeah. >> Doug Rivers: Yeah, and so I think there's some signs that Biden's position will strengthen over the next six to nine months if things continue as they have been recently. >> Bill Whelan: So, Doug- >> David Brady: I do want to say one thing. I think this election ultimately is going to come down to Democrats and independents.
What the Democrats hope, you can't get this out of any poll, but I think ultimately it's going to come down to the fact that the people who voted against Trump, the Republicans and independents who had enough, I think they're going to go to the polls in 2024. And all the things Doug said about the economy that'll help Biden a little. But ultimately it's not going to, nobody's for Biden. Very few people voted for Biden. They voted against Trump.
And that's the way they're going to run the campaign again. And I do think that running the primary, continuing to push the issue that the election was stolen, I think those things build the base, but they're going to hurt with independence in the long run. And that's, of course, the Democrat's bet, and that's why they're going with Biden. >> Bill Whelan: I want to talk more about independence, but I want to close out one thing on polling, Doug, and that's a question of right track, wrong track.
I know when we did polling in California for Hoover, Californians always show the state on the wrong track. You look at polls across the country, I believe majority Americans will say wrong track. But when we talk about right track, wrong track, Doug, how would you drill down on that? Would you do it simply on economics? Would you do it on America's standing in the world? Would you do it on social values? Or would you do it on political class?
Because here we have in this election two very unpopular candidates. You have the sad situation with Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein in Washington, the political class, the gerontocracy. How would you break down right track, wrong track in this country? >> Doug Rivers: The conventional view is that right track, wrong track is largely an economic measure. It can pick up other kinds of malaise, but mostly the economy.
I think the age issue for McConnell and Feinstein and Biden, and for that matter, Trump, is specific to the candidates. >> David Brady: Over time that correlation between the economy, [LAUGH] and how's the country doing is going down. I think it's the less economics, more cultural. There's all sorts of stuff in it, but it's as though the cars on a downhill slope with no brakes. And it doesn't matter which driver you drop in, people are going to say, gee, the car's going the wrong way.
>> Doug Rivers: Well, I don't think a majority has said the economy was on the right track for a quarter century. That was not true 50 years ago. It's also the case that you can't get a majority saying the economy is agreeing on what direction the economy is going. >> Bill Whelan: That's my fault. It's the public's default position to say the country's on the wrong track. But what exactly do they think is wrong? >> Doug Rivers: Well, it is the default position.
In the age of partisan polarization, it was not 50 years ago. If you believe the poll numbers, we've been headed on the wrong track, going to hell for a very long time. >> David Brady: [LAUGH] We should have been there some time, in fact, according to Dante, we should be in about the eighth circle now. There's only one left. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, Dave, I wanna go to your wheelhouse and that's independent voters. Gallup came out with the poll this spring.
That poll would have you believe that 49% of Americans think of themselves as, quote, unquote, independents. What do you think of that? >> David Brady: Well, the standard question is you ask people, at the moment, are you a Republican, a Democrat, or independent? And I do think that that number, that may be a little high for Gallup, but if you ask just that basic three point question, or independent, then it's the case that independents are the plurality.
But then the follow up question is, well, if you're an independent, do you lean toward one party or the other? That's the leaners that Doug was talking about. And as you move closer to the election, the number of people who are pure independents gets down around 10, 12 points. The problem is you could really be an independent and decide how you're gonna vote. And then when you ask the leaning question, it just means, you don't lean toward the party, you lean toward the vote.
And Doug may know better than I, but I don't think we have an answer as to exactly how many are actually independent leaning, Republican or Democrat, versus which way they're gonna lean, which way they're gonna vote. >> Bill Whelan: I guess as simple as being- I'm not gonna get too wonky on you here. >> Doug Rivers: The Gallup question is, in politics as of today, if you call yourself Democrat, Republican, or independent.
Which is a little different from the academic party ID question, which is supposed to get it more deeply held identity. So the Gallup number typically is higher in independents than the academic surveys, and it bounces around more. The other big debate is the so-called closet partisans debate, which Dave was referring to when you ask people are they a Democrat, Republican, or independent? And then you ask the independents whether they lean towards one party or the other.
And if you classify leaners as partisans and they do appear to be pretty partisan, then the fraction of pure independence is down in the low teens, it's not close to half. >> Bill Whelan: I think you just described California, where the biggest gain in parties has been, or at least in terms of affiliations, has been so-called DTS, or declined estates, which is a tricky way of saying independents.
But when you actually look at the voting results, they're not saying that they tend to lean left when it comes to, it certainly comes to candidates. >> Doug Rivers: Yeah, nationally, independents tend to lean a bit to the right. In California, we no longer have closed primaries, so there's no incentive to pick one party or the other for registration.
But Steven Saliba here and I have been collecting some data on this and have found that the decline in state does appear to be correlated with split ticket voting in the fraction of independents. >> David Brady: Say that again. >> Doug Rivers: The party registration of not registering with a party, half the US states have party registration, allow you to pick a party. Frequently, they have partisan primaries where you have to be registered with a party to vote in that party's primary.
California, of course, got rid of partisan primaries and went to the so-called jungle primary. >> Bill Whelan: Right. >> Doug Rivers: Where the top two candidates end up being on the November ballot. And that reduces the incentive of people to register as partisans, even if they may psychologically be partisan. >> Bill Whelan: Yeah, that'll be a fun Senate race for you to pull, by the way, Doug, in California.
Two questions about independents, and we're running out of time, we only got about ten minutes to go here. One, I want your thoughts on Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona. Her chances of getting re-elected because she is now an independent and hoping that voters are gonna reward her for kinda being a baby McCain, being a maverick. And then secondly, what's your thoughts on the no labels political organization? So first, Doug, your thoughts on Arizona and Kyrsten Sinema? >> Doug Rivers: She's toast.
>> Bill Whelan: Why so? >> Doug Rivers: She's highly unpopular, Democrats hate her, and Republicans aren't gonna vote for her. So I see no path for her in Arizona. I think I'll be surprised if she actually makes it to the election. >> David Brady: The only path for her is if the Democrats nominate, as they might, somebody way on the left. And Blake Masters gets nominated, and she can get on the ballot as independent, but I don't think her chances are high, but I wouldn't put them as zero.
>> Bill Whelan: I think actually Masters and Carrie Lake are gonna score off in that race, aren't they? >> David Brady: Yes. >> Doug Rivers: Yeah, yes. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, all right. >> Doug Rivers: That'll be a fun one to watch. >> David Brady: No labels. [LAUGH] >> Doug Rivers: Yeah, so, I mean, we've mentioned no labels before. First, it's practically impossible for a third party to gain much traction.
At the moment, I think most people perceive them as drawing votes away from the Democrats, which is why Democrats have been so critical of them. But if Trump is on the ballot, he's such a force to mobilize Democrats to vote for the Democratic candidate. It would have to be something calamitous happens to Biden to make a third party candidate at all viable.
>> Bill Whelan: Right, so Joe Lieberman has said that no labels will only move forward if it has, in his words, a realistic chance of winning. So this prompted me to go back and look up Ross Perot's numbers in 1992, cuz Perot is the closest thing we've come to kind of a real, real third party press. It's not a spoiler, but somebody who really did some serious disruption. What was Perot's strongest state in 1992, Doug? >> Doug Rivers: Was it in Maine?
>> Bill Whelan: Alaska, 28, he got 27% Idaho, Kansas, and Maine. But the closest he ever got in a statewide race was within 11 points of the statewide winner. >> David Brady: But he also affected the results of the election by people who Republicans switched away from Bush at a much higher rate than Democrats who voted for him. And that's what I think the Democrats are worried about.
Not that they can win, but a third party candidate in just a couple states with 3 or 4% of the vote could hurt Biden. >> Bill Whelan: Right, well, that's been the history of our country, at least in the century. Ralph Nader gets 2.7% of the vote in the year 2000. But you talk to Democrats and they'll point the finger at Florida and New Hampshire. There are Hillary Clinton supporters who will go to their grave hating Jill Stein because she took away votes in Wisconsin.
If you look at Gary Johnson, he's libertarian and Jill Stein was a green. In 2016, they collected about five point million votes, or about 4.4%, but they managed to screw up the equation. So question, gentlemen, Cornel West. >> Doug Rivers: I don't think- >> David Brady: I'll start on that one, I don't think he's going anywhere. I'll be the toast on that, but the strong Democrats, the ones I just gave the example of, are most likely to vote in the primary.
They're strong Democrats and they're very liberal. And the dislike they have for Trump is so high that they'll vote for the cryogenic Biden over Professor West. >> Bill Whelan: Doug, is there any appetite, though, among this electorate which would look at Trump and Biden and not like the choice and would want a third choice? And don't throw Oprah at me, but just the idea of somebody who could maybe be clean from the political system, it could just come in as the white knight.
I'm not saying it'll happen in 2024, the concept, at least, of somebody just coming in as a political outsider. And I don't know if you watch the Showtime show Billions, but that's part of the plot of Billions this year. The billionaire trying to come in and save the political system. Well, it wouldn't bother me. >> David Brady: It wouldn't bother me. I don't know how Doug feels about it. It wouldn't bother me to see a white knight charging, I just know where they are.
They're going to have to come out of nowhere. >> Doug Rivers: There's a decent, well, first, nearly everyone in the whole electorate is dissatisfied with one of the major party choices. There's, you know, go find me a person that thinks that a Biden Trump race has two candidates that they think would be good choices. There will be plenty of bellyaching and dissatisfaction and so forth, but I just don't think it will go anywhere.
People aren't going to be terribly happy with the choices, but in the end, they're going to have to live with it because it's going to be either Biden or Trump. And so a vote for a third party candidate is effectively a thrown away vote. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, final question for you gentlemen. Let's throw one more. Yogi, as I'm at you. It ain't over till it's over. Is the republican race over right now? Well- >> Doug Rivers: Not quite. >> David Brady: Not quite.
>> Bill Whelan: I love asking questions just so we can go back and burn these conversations. >> David Brady: It's 98% over. >> Doug Rivers: Yeah, I'm with Dave on that one. Trump is polling less well in Iowa and New Hampshire. It's not like it's close in those states. >> Bill Whelan: Well, seems to be that part of the problem is you can't, and this goes back to 2016 in deja vu, you can't be something with nothing right now.
And it's not just having weak numbers Iowa or the chance to topple them there and maybe pick up, show me who's got momentum, somebody who could step in and take advantage of that. And you might say Nikki Haley, but she might be a pass, a thought if she has a bad debate performance. Ron DeSantis, I think people may be teaching classes on, [LAUGH] Ron DeSantis in a year or two from now on bad political craftsmanship.
But it just seems to me the Republicans are going to have the same problem, that if they don't want Donald Trump, they've yet to put forward an alternative. >> David Brady: I absolutely agree with that. Absolutely, 100% agreement. >> Doug Rivers: I think Nikki Haley has the little mo, as George Hw Bush used to say. >> Bill Whelan: Yeah, a little mo, right. >> Doug Rivers: He went from eight to ten or something like that.
>> David Brady: Yeah, that means, [LAUGH] it's the 8th inning and you're down 13 to 1. [LAUGH] >> Doug Rivers: But but no big mo. >> David Brady: It was 13 or nothing, and now it's 13 to 1. It's a little mo. >> Bill Whelan: [LAUGH] A little mo. There you go. >> David Brady: It's no mo. It's no mo in the long run. >> Bill Whelan: So then, question for you, Doug.
If Dave is right and the Republican race is 98% over, I didn't ask you about the probability of the Biden-Kennedy race, >> David Brady: [LAUGH] >> Bill Whelan: What are we polling on? >> Doug Rivers: That one is over, Bill. I'm willing to call that one. >> Bill Whelan: You're putting 100 on that one, [INAUDIBLE] >> Bill Whelan: Okay, then what are we polling on right now? >> Doug Rivers: No, Bill, we poor pollsters have to earn a living even when there's nothing good to poll about.
>> David Brady: I've been trying to get them to answer a question that he sort of invented for parties. I think if we ask the question about, would you ever vote for Biden? Would you ever vote for Trump? And then say, I might think about it. I think for me, going into the election, where I think it's going to come down to how much you like for Trump voters, they might like him, but for Biden voters, for Biden's part, it's how much they dislike Trump.
I think a question like that would be very useful. You said at one point you thought it wasn't bad. >> Doug Rivers: I'll do it, Dave, for our next session. >> David Brady: But I do think that's the relevant question, is how many. So imagine the economy takes the wrong turn, or Biden has some bad moments, senior moments, et cetera, and then how many people, what I really want to know is how many people fit into that. I would never vote for Trump under any circumstance. That's crucial.
I think it's a big number for the Democrats, but I want to know about independents and leaning Republicans, the very people who brought the 2020 result that we had. I think Doug's right. When he started the show it looks like more like 2020 than 2016. And that's the question.
>> Bill Whelan: Yeah, I think so, and Doug, in this age, is it hard to get people to actually admit they might change their vote, that they might actually have an open mind to Biden and they might actually have an open mind to Trump? >> Doug Rivers: Well, I think they're telling the truth about that. The thing we find difficult is finding anybody who changes their mind.
So every week we get a new poll, it's a new sample, and there's a bounce one way or the other, and then we go looking for find me someone that switched sides and they're awfully hard to find. >> David Brady: In The Economist recontact, the one that had 5,000 voters we asked over the same pattern as a panel. We asked it from starting in 2015 through 20. And I guess we're going to go back. There were some, we could find some people who changed their mind between 2016 and 2020.
>> Doug Rivers: Yeah, but it was on the order of a few points. >> David Brady: Yeah, but that decides elections. >> Bill Whelan: Yeah, I was going to say some people, does that move the needle or are we talking about enough people to get under a carpool in California? >> Doug Rivers: Well, I'm not going to speculate on California, but the number of people switching was smaller than the new voters entering the electorate and older voters dying away.
And the net mobilization, if you look at the number of people who voted in 2020 and didn't vote in 2016, that was a massive number, 25 million people. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, I can promise you one last question, Doug, and this is indeed the last question. So if we're not gonna look at the horse race numbers, if we think the two parties have their candidates selected, tell people when they look at the next Doug Rivers poll, what line they should go to, what metric would you point them to?
>> David Brady: Well, as I said earlier, I think the most interesting thing is we have, by objective standards, a relatively improving economy. And when will that start to register? Because traditionally that's been the kind of thing that has net movement in the polls, where you go from a bad economy to a good economy, those effects are much lower in the last 20 years than they were in the earlier history of polling. But I'm sort of betting on economic reality.
If it's improving or certainly if it got worse, Biden would be in deep trouble. >> Bill Whelan: Okay, well, Doug, let's leave it there. And, hey, I didn't mean to suggest that you should be out of a job right now. We need public opinion more now more than ever. All right, Doug, thank you very much for coming on podcast. Dave, Brady has already left us. He had attendants of staff for business. So come back soon on the show. Let's talk more about what the polls tell us.
>> Doug Rivers: Thanks, Bill. >> Bill Whelan: You've been listening to Matters of Policy and Politics, a Hoover Institution podcast devoted to governance and balance of power here in America and around the globe. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to our show. If you wouldn't mind, please spread the word. Tell your friends to have a listen. The Hoover Institution has Facebook, Instagram, and X feeds.
I have a hard time saying x. I want to say Twitter, but x marks a spot. Our x handle is @hooverinst, that's H-O-O-V-E-R-I-N-S-T. Dave Brady is not on social media. Doug Rivers is, his X handle is @Doug_Rivers, billed as you might expect, and his excellent polling firm, YouGov, is also on X. The x handle there is @yougov, spelled Y-O-U-G-O-V. I mentioned our website beginning of the show, t hat is hoover.or.
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