3-5-26 Sloan with Kevin Burton

I don't want to be in a Mexican All right, here we go, Scott's long back half of the week. It's all good, seven hundred wlw is. The rain just continues to hammer us right now. If your basement is not not wet, you're lucky.

You're lucky.

Six days now when they ran war, more Americans disapprove than approve. The MAGA coalition is fracturing, somewhat, Democrats are fracturing somewhat. Congress is paralyzed. The White House still can't explain why we're fighting in the first place. And the poll numbers aren't good. So we'll do a little bit of a dive on that one this morning with Kevin Burton. Kevin with Crosstown Consulting here in Cincinnati. How are you, buddy, pretty good by yourself. I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine. Yeah,

I mean, the only thing.

That we can look back on is both you know, Biden pulling out from Afghanistan and the George W. Bush, right because both of those are in recent memories, and both of those hurt both presidents.

Going forward, now, the.

One question is this something that is a three to four week operation or is this something that's going to be a quagmire. You know, like if if troops go, I think there's something around like twelve to fifteen percent of Americans when actually sent troops. Uh, then I think you're going to be looking at a two thousand and eight style wipeout for the Republicans. If this is just a quick operation, maybe no harm, no foul yet.

Like Obama, Obama didn't hurt him. Obama came he boo boom, Morain, we're out this. So it's if it's days, we're okay. If it's weeks, different start, if it's months, forget about it.

Yes, exactly, that's that's the perfect way to say it. Now.

And Trump is non committal on this whole thing, of course. Yeah, that's and that's not a good look. I think that's not good if you're Republican. Right now, the Fox News poll shows a more favorable flip than CNN, you gover the other ones. Now, well, how do you explain that gap? I mean, typically, well, it's because it's a right leading you know, they're going to make Trump look good, but that's not always the case.

No, And also it's their sample size. So some poles will do like five are roughly around five hundred. Other poles will do thirteen hundred, other poles will do twenty seven hundred, which obviously if.

You do more people, the pole is going to be better.

You know, poles are random, it's completely random, but like you will just randomly get a bad sub section of poles. So it's always important when you're looking at poles to take the aggregate aggregate of all of them because that's generally where it's going to lie most in the middle.

Ye know.

And people will say, well, I mean Trump is you know, he never was able to fit in that bucket anyway, because trying to measure his supporters is really really tough. But that was more of was that more of a one off or a couple times supposed to Again, of water always comes back to level, right, is that the case?

Now?

It's like yeah, pretty much, Now we were pretty good at measuring Trump supporters.

Well, so Trump in twenty sixteen, they couldn't measure them in twenty twenty Remember it was Democrats have to be up seven points nationally in the polls for that to correlate to a general.

Election will win.

The Harris poll was basically fifty to fifty the whole time, give or take.

So that one wasn't as shocking.

So, yes, polling has gotten better, but there still is the undercurrent of rural America just pulling just hasn't quite figured.

That out yet.

Yes, they've gotten better. It's it's way better than twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. But at the end of the day, independents are going to dictate who wins the House the Senate later this year.

Gotcha, all right? So we know that elections are won in the middle Independent disapproval rating anywhere between fifty five and near seventy percent, depending on the poll, And that is the one that you've got to be looking at and being really nervous about right now if you're a Republican in those numbers. But do you see opportunity there as a Democrat and can the capitalize not that's a big question.

Well, I mean Democrats have kind of just been lost in the wilderness for the last honestly decade trying to figure out a strategy. They just can't figure out Trump. But the one thing that can think of presidency faster than anything is an unpopular war decision, you KNOWLBJ add to that with Biden. So if you're Democrats, but to your point, roughly about twenty percent of Democrats actually support this, So it's actually very fascinating why twenty three percent of Republicans disapprove of this.

So it's it's still.

Very very early. I think there's a lot of people. If you are a millennial, you grew up with the Iraq and Afghanistan wares, so you understand that.

I think if you're under thirty.

Five, you don't probably really understand, you know, watching the news every day, seeing you know, soldiers and things that. So I think it's all, is this Obama Libya where you know, bomb bombbomb quick over no troops or is this the Iraq war?

George Bush?

I think it's gotta be fad right.

Is that okay?

We we thought there? I mean we've been talking about Iran getting nukes and weaponizing since the nineties. I mean, is it clear and present danger? I don't know if I buy that, but I'm fine with them taking out Comani because not only one of the people, but because of the whole regime. And maybe you don't go and take the country over and try and rebuild it in your own likeness, because that doesn't work. We're horrible at

And that's the great unknown, you know, if this is a quick successful operation.

Yeah, it's very possible. But I think at this point with.

Trump, Tizer dug dug In, you know, it's all about the independence. And so that's about ten to fifteen percent of the voting Democrats aren't going to move, Republicans aren't going to move on this.

A lot so and it depends.

Yeah, So the MAGA coalition was built on anti interventionism and other things too that Trump has like turned his back on and he looks like he's turning his back here. And you have defections from you know, people like Megan Kelley and Tucker Calls and others that broke Trump. How significant is that at this point?

You know?

I mean, those are some key stakeholders that are against it because you know, he did promise no more wars and we are in a different war. It seems like every other week. You know. I think Americans, especially like what we were just talking about. If millennials or gen X, you've grown up with war your whole entire life.

You understand the magnitude.

Of it that it's not something that you take lightly, both with the loss of life and financial I don't think what is it about ninety percent of Americans don't want to send troops.

So you know, we got to see what the president and his team does.

It's still very early. We're six days in. You know, Yes, it was a very successful thing to get rid of the eyes whole. What does that translate to and how many lives of you know, American servicemen.

Does that dictate it? It's still very very early, right.

We had Congress of course striking out the war powers, our solution. Greg Landsman voted no on that, and I'd imagine he's facing now more primary threats from the left. And you look at that district, but also overall, progressive groups are threatening to prim at Democrats like Landsman, who voted against war powers. So how effective has that strategy historically been a changing incumbent voting behavior?

Well, so there was actually a very contested grace in North Carolina really about this and about a pack and.

The incumbent barely held on. But you're really seeing.

Democrats who have gotten donations from a pac they are getting primaried and they're being very contentious. You know, I think democrats finally know that for primaries.

It's a negative thing.

Yeah, if you support Trump in any way, and I'm not saying that's good, bad, or indifferent, but if you support Trump in a primary, it's costly.

Mm We'll we'll see. Obviously it's a threat to from Republicans as well. You know, the Texas primaries just happened, and that should a massive Democratic turnout in a Surgeon and Latino heavy counties there, and that's a demographic Trump made pretty significant inroads with it in the last election cycle.

Is that a.

Is that an inroad for Democrats there? I mean, if you can if you can flip to parts of or Texas blue, that that's that's absolutely massive. Is that durable or is that just a brief reaction what's.

Happening in Iran.

So Texas is the white whale for Democrats. That always has been. I think most people would agree, regardless of what you think. James tel Rico is a very talented or it's ortator. You know, he's smooth, he's organic, and authenticity is I think the biggest thing that comes through with him and just generally I think with the American people, authenticity is the number one thing that voters are looking for.

Regardless of what you know.

So people are tired of you know, growing up in the early two thousands nineties, it was almost like a sitcom politician, you know, like no, like people just want someone who's authentic. So for Texas and the Latina thing is it's a combination of ice, it's a combination of rising crisis and then also James Telerga talks about faith, which the Latin community is usually more religious. So for the Democrats to take back house, it's gonna or the Senate,

Those, and that's that's a.

Tall order because also fundraising for Democrats are lagging drastically behind Republicans.

And the interesting thing.

Is Texas down is actually probably a better bet than even Ohio with how the poll numbers are looking.

Gotcha, if Kevin Burton is here, he's with Crosstown Consulting

Well a lot. I mean, you know, George W.

Bush spent a year laying out his case right for the Iraq war, and when we went to Iraq there was a pretty big approval. Then you look at Biden, who just kind of pulled the rug out and there was no plan and he never recovered from that. So the American people understand that if there is going to be a war, there needs to be a there needs to be a game plan. You can't be winged. And that's the number one thing. You know, their messaging has

If this goes closer to November then March and it's still ongoing, what does that tell you about the effect on the House and Senate races and what might happen.

I mean, you don't have to be a political consultant to know if we're if we're in a war and it's a non popular war, it's going to be good.

For the Democrats. It just is. Yeah.

You know, if it's a quick rip the mandate off, you can recover from that.

But if if this.

Is a long war with troops and spending billions of dollars, you know, with all the problems that Democrats have in their leadership, even they probably can't screw that up.

Yeah.

Yeah, Well I wanted to leave our discussion Kevin Burton, because you're a friend. I wanted to leave you with a with an empty net goal or a layup if it were to a nice easy one to end the conversation. Kevin Burton at Crosstown Consulting in Northern Kentucky.

Thanks again, brother be.

Will thank you for always all right, take care news on the way at about five, the weather continues. We got rain, rain and more rain, when will if we will, and maybe will we get a break?

Who knows?

Full forecast seconds away, And we'll continue to follow. What's happening in Iran right now and Texas is a really interesting indicator of how things may go in right now now again in a few days versus a few months. I think that is survival and probably what we should be doing at this point. If this thing drags out, and God forbid we start going a well, we need to. We need some expeditionary forces there, so they would call them.

Welton