Welcome.
It is Verdict with Senator Ted Kruz ben Ferguson with you, and I can't believe it. We are six weeks out until election day, so it's a good time to take a pause look at this election. What are going to be the big issues and where we are right now, Senator, I can't believe it.
Six weeks is not that long.
As of tomorrow, six weeks from tomorrow will be election day and it'll all be over, God willing, unless it ends up and the Democrats have of their way, it becomes election month. But we will finally be there. November fifth is six weeks and one day away. And what we're going to do on this podcast is layout number one, the presidential what is it going to come down to?
And number two, we're going to make a run across the Senate map and the potential pickup states for Republicans and give you a state of the race right now six weeks out. We're going to do all of that, give you an overview of this final six week stretch what to expect heading into election day.
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So I think there are three issues that are front and center. Number one the economy, and really inflation is the most important piece of the economy. Number two is illegal immigration and the chaos at our southern border.
And number three is crime.
And if you look state by state, those three issues are consistently polling at the top. The economy and illegal immigration go back and forth. For one and two state by state, they both tend in state polls to have about thirty percent of the voters say that the number one issue, and then everything else drops to single digits after those two. So it's really in crime and illegal
immigration are interwoven, so those are similar issues. And listen, as I look at this race, everyone has been whip sawed by the polls going up and down, and Trump is Upcommala is up, Trump's Upcamala is up.
It's dizzy.
It's like watching a tennis match, which I'm sure you like, Ben, but it does get a little crazy going back and forth. At the end of the day. Sitting here six weeks out, I am still optimistic. I think it's going to be a good election night. I think Republicans are going to win the White House. I think we're gonna win the Senate, and I think we're going to win the House and
grow our majority of the House. And the reason is that on those three issues, the top issues, all three of them favor Republicans at the end of the day. Kamala Harris's entire campaign strategy is built on the approach of hide, dodge, evade, Pretend you're not in office, Pretend you have no responsibility for the record right now. That can last a while, and with the media helping her, it has lasted a considerable while. But at the end of the day, I think it's just untenable and so
my hope and this has been my message. I saw Trump, I was with him Thursday night. We had a big event in DC where he was standing up against anti Semitism. Was a really good, really good, really strong event. And you know, my message to him then and every time I see him is, Folks, on the issues, the fundamental contrast your record versus her record, Trump's record as president in virtually every respect. On the fundamental question, are you
better off now than you were four years ago? The answer for virtually everyone is no. And my hope is on the presidential that that gets pounded in a million times between now and election day.
There also seems to be another problem that Kama Harris is really facing, and it seems to be enthusiasm. She doesn't have the numbers that you usually traditionally need among minority voters, either Hispanics or African Americans. And also there's real concerns now of younger voters thirty five and understaying home is that a recipe for disaster and how much should we read into that six weeks out.
Well, A, there's a lack of enthusiasm. B we've seen younger voters breaking more towards Trump because look, younger voters, it was easy. Voting for hope and change is an easy thing for young people to do. But getting mugged by reality has a way of changing your perspective. It's one thing when you're coming out of four years of Trump and the economy is good, you're safe, and you feel like, Okay, I'm going to go with a feel good vote. Now, look, young people are discovering now inflation.
They're trying to pay their bills. They go to the grocery store and holy cow, their paycheck doesn't even cover their expenses. You know, they look at their bills, they try to fill up a tank of gas and wow, that hurts. And then you look at say a young couple that's going to buy their first home. And it was only four years ago that we had two and a half percent interest rates. Now you've got seven percent interest rates, and young people I think are really feeling that.
And so that.
You've got both decreased enthusiasm but you also have the people who are feeling the and the pain of this bad record. Are many of the people who four years ago pulled the lever for Joe Biden. Then I think they're going to be less eager to do so this time.
You know, there's something that you just mentioned there, and it's about people just feeling the pain every time they get their paycheck and it's not enough to cover their bills. There was a big policy that was rolled out and then I don't know if you've noticed this, but I've noticed it. Like now it's like nonexistent. It was this big twenty five thousand dollars for first time home buyers trying to bribe people to vote for Kama Harrison.
I'll give you twenty five thousand dollars if you haven't bought a house, And now I haven't heard anything about that.
Is it because they know that they can't do it usually they don't mind lying, like they lied multiple times on student loans. Or is it because they're not talking about it because they've gotten caught so many times promising things like student loan forgiveness that they haven't been able to do.
Yeah, I think people just thought it was gimmicky. I think people were skeptical of it. I can tell you anyone who attended even a basic ECON class would know the only effect of that is going to be to raise the cost of houses by twenty five thousand dollars. I mean, that's what it's going to do.
You know.
It also struck me it was really really sharp compared to the bill that passed California that actually Gavin knew some veto that, if I remember right, was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a home if you're an illegal alien. And so it was striking that Kamala was offering so much less to American citizens than California Democrats were willing to give the illegals. I just think people heard that and it just just sounded like BS to them.
Well, let's talk about also the price controls on food. I mean, it was it's clearly a communist idea. It was one that was just obliterated when she said it by so many on TV. One of those and it was an interesting point because I think it stuck with me was Kevin o' He's one of the guys on Shark Tank. A lot of Americans that maybe aren't watching, you know, like CNBC, but they know Shark Tank and when he said what he said, it went viral. And I think it went viral because people know him from
Shark Tank and they actually kind of like him. And this is what he said back in August, and it's still today showing up on my timeline with I think there's forty or fifty million views.
Kevin since you brought that up. She's calling it price gouging, you know, price controls, price fixing, whatever it is. I'm wondering why we aren't hearing more business leaders, more grocery store operators coming out and saying this plan is crazy, it doesn't work. Why are we hearing more of them push back on this.
Oh, they're coming, don't worry, don't worry. There's a lot of narrative going on in the background waiting for Labor Day to.
Pass this policy.
And the best way to describe it is un American.
And let me explain why.
In America, we don't tell a farmer what to sell is apple for, and we don't tell a grocer what to sell it for. That's how our economy works. We don't have the Ministry of grocery pricing. There's no way to monitor this. We tried the seventies, they tried it in the late eighties and the Soviet Union. They've been trying it in Venezuela. It leads to shortages and hyperinflation. This policy is beyond bad. It's insane, and I think
it will go nowhere. I get why she's doing it, it's populous, but we're all waiting for when she has to sit in front of you a reporter, who will ask her how she's going to implement this. That's when this falls apart. There is no way to do this, and every time it's tried, it's ended up in an absolute catastrophe.
Every time it's been tried, it ends up an absolute catastrophe. And this clip was back in August when he said it, and yet still it seems like it's breaking news for people that are in normal Middle America.
Now, I will say there are a couple of premises of what he said that have proven false. Number One, he says, when she sits in front of you a reporter, Well, she's not sitting in front of reporters, and he said who secondly will ask her how she's going to do it. The handful of time she has sat in front of her reporters, they throw softballs to her and ask her how she became so amazing and wonderful, and you know, I'm waiting for the what's your favorite ice cream? Although
that's their Joe Biden question. So she's not getting any pushback from the press. That being said, like you made a comment when you said that that that that the price controls were communist, and it reminded me of you know, during the debate, Trump said, well, she's a Marxist and her father was a Marxist professor, and I got to say both when you said it, when he said it, I think to some people that seems a little jarring because the word communist or Marxist just sounds like an insult.
It's like you're calling someone, you know, just a jerk. But look, being a Marxist, be a communist, that that is an actual thing. It is something that has substance and content. Marxism is the philosophy that was taught by Karl Marx, and it is the predicate for communism. And the reason you said, and you said rightly that price controls are communists. But this is not even theoretical Marxism. Actually, theoretical Marxism doesn't have a whole lot about about price controls.
It is rather practical Marxism that you look at communist countries, you look at the Soviet Union, you look at you, you look at Cuba, you look at at Venezuela, and what they end up doing is the government fixes prices and says, okay, if you want a gallon of milk, we're going to say a gallon of milk is a dollar. And then they just pick a number, and they pick a number that they want to sound low because people will be happy. And then what what O'Leary said is
what happens. The price controls are always wrong and you end up having massive shortages. So if you looked at the Soviet Union, you just saw empty grocery shells, so it was great you had a dollar for a gallon of milk. There was just no milk, but you were really happy it was so cheap if it were there. And that Oleary is right that every place it has
been tried, it fails. And the reason is a price is reflecting millions of inputs and outputs and its supply and demand meeting each other, and the government has never been smart enough to figure that out. They always always, always get it wrong. And this is where left us say, well, next time, we'll do it better. Well, it never has been. Nobody ever has gotten it right. And I'm willing to venture that Kamala is not smarter than everyone else who's tried price controls in the past.
So when you look at this as an issue, Larry Kudlow when it came out, he said, this is price controls, controls by any other name, and let's just call it what it is.
It's it's been a failure.
But he also warned about what happens with the black market, and he said he went in and he said, let's just talk about profits, because she kept coming back, and this is what the Democrats do. They demonize people that make money. And he said, let's just talk about corporate margins. And he said, if they're gouging somebody, they must be
enormously profitable. And they are not referring to grocers, right, he said, okay, He said, grocery store profit margin is one point two percent, the meat, beef and poultry four point seven percent. All of American businesses, by the way are well above that at eight and a half percent. And he said, look, if she wants to go after somebody for making too much money, Apple, for example, they make twenty six percent, Microsoft thirty six percent, Navida fifty
three percent. He said, So the idea that the grocery market is the problem with a grocery stores profit margin on average last year was one point two percent, he said, his total insanity. And this is her trying to blame her bad policies on somebody else.
Well, look, she has a political imperative to do this, which is people are really unhappy with inflation, they're unhappy with the economy, they're unhappy with the illegal immigration, they're unhappy with crime, and so she knows. I remember at the debate, the very first question asked in the debate is are you better off now than you were four years ago? That is, there's such a powerful, inherent impetus to this that well, okay, listen to what Tim Waltz had to say on exactly this point.
We can't afford, we can't afford four.
More years of this senator.
That should be an ad that's instantly made, not just for Trump, but I think for anybody running for Off.
It's like Harrison Waltz.
I mean, it's right in front of him, it's on the podium, the signs are behind him in Pennsylvania, and he says, we can't handle four more years of this, and yet it's her policies it got us to where we are right now.
Yeah, I don't know if the Trump campaign has actually put out as an ad. I know I've seen on Twitter that clip and then I'm Donald Trump and I approved this message because it literally that the inherent impetus to say, are you better off now than you are four years ago? Tim walt is saying, we can't afford four more years of this. Wait a second. Kamala Harris is in charge. She and Joe Biden are both in
They are the president and vice president. And that's their fundamental problem is they're trying to run a change campaign of everything sucks, so vote for me and I'll change it. But she's the one in office. And listen, it's incumbent. The media are not going to point that out. Kamala is not going to point that out. So it is incumbent on the Trump campaign to point that out.
All right, So you mentioned the Trump campaign and Donald Trump has already said it made it very queer. He's not having another debate. Kamala Harris has said I want another debate after the last one. There's a vice president debate that's coming out in the next six weeks. Usually, and traditionally, vice president debates don't really move the needle when it comes to the polls.
They just don't.
Now that can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it, but traditionally it doesn't move the needle. Is this vice president to debate, in your opinion, any more important because there is only one debate between these times beforehand.
Look, I think some people will watch it. You and I will watch it because we're both politics nerds. But I think the viewership will be a fraction of the viewership that watched Trump versus Harris, and I think it'll probably be the two of them just pounding the hell out of each other. I suspect I suspect neither of them like each other very much, and I think it'll
be nasty. I think they'll be snarky. I think they'll be you know, JD is very bright, Waltz appears to be bright as well, So I think they'll both be just slugging it out. But I do not see the VP debate as moving a significant number of votes either direction.
It goes back to like you said earlier, it's the economy stupid. I want to deal with the second issue on your list, and that was illegal immigration, and also it really does come into the also the issue of crime. We're going to deal with that in the moment, but first let me tell you about Patriot Mobile. Americans are tired and frustrated by stalling economy, inflation, endless wars, and
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illegal immigration. Democrats, I don't think realize how big of a liability this was going to be for them, But we're seeing it play out in places like Arola, Colorado. We're seeing it play out in New York City. We're seeing it playing out in all of these major quote sanctuary cities that they bragged about just two years ago in the election.
We're a sanctuary city.
Where a sanctuary city, We're a welcoming city, We're a loving city. Hell, I mean the mayor of New York City was running on that that we're a sanctuary city. Now he's like, get out of here, you're ruining my city. That is going to be a big liability and election day.
Yeah.
And look, broadly speaking, there are two major demographic trends in America. Number one, blue collar voters are moving right. That that is moving Midwestern states more republican. But number two, suburban voters and in particular suburban women, have been moving left. And that has been moving big suburban states like Georgia, like Texas, like Arizona, they've been getting more purple because
they have large suburban populations. Part of the reason that illegal immigration is is such a powerful issue this race is that with suburban women, illegal immigration is often topping the list of their top issue and listen. For many suburban women in twenty twenty, they were not particularly fond of Trump's tone and his rhetoric mean even though they agreed with him on the issues, that they didn't like the way he said it, and many of them voted Democrats.
The question now, as illegal immigration and crime has gotten worse and worse, is Okay, you're a suburban mom, do you really want an MS thirteen gangbanger living next door to you and threatening your kids? And it is it's becoming real when they see Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment buildings in Aurural, Colorado, or in al Paso, or in Chicago.
When when they see day after day after day Americans being killed, women being raped, children being raped by illegal immigrants being released, that fundamentally starts to it really goes to safety and security. It becomes real, It becomes wait, this is threatening my family. And so that is an issue which which I hope every day between now an election day. The economy and illegal immigration are every day, every topic, all day law.
When you look at not just the issue of safety, is the issue of the financial burden on the community becoming enough of an issue that it is going to matter an election to I say that because in Colorado, for example, in Denver, they're actually having to move resources around, They're not able to hire an adequate police force because so much money is now going to take care of illegal immigrants. New York City, it is a drain on their economy, not just the safety aspect, but a drain
financially the amount of money it's taking. Is that also one of the things that you think Democrats maybe didn't calculate when they were figuring this one out.
Yeah, I think that's a bigger issue for Democrat politicians than it is for voters. So if you're the mayor of New York, the financial drains a real problem because you've got to figure out where to get the money for all these hotel rooms that you're putting illegal aliens in. I'm not sure the voters necessarily make the connection between
where that money is coming from. It is an issue, but I think a far more potent issue in New York City, for example, is we covered on a podcast a few weeks ago the reports that's seventy five percent, seventy five percent of the crimes in Midtown Manhattan were being committed by illegal aliens. I mean, that is a stunning number. That is a number that I think people understandably get really upset about, why are you bringing criminals into my community?
And it's why.
Kamala is desperately trying to run away from this issue. Look, she has spent her entire career denouncing the wall, arguing for amnesty, saying illegal immigration shouldn't be illegal. On every issue, she's been an open border radical. She is right now spending millions of dollars running TV ads with Donald Trump's border wall. I mean, it is a fundamentally a duplicitous strategy. She's trying to pretend that her record is the exact
opposite of what it is. I think that can work sometimes, but at the end of the day, I'm a big believer that truth will prevail, and I think it's just so fundamentally false, and I think the Democrats are pretty skeptical of the voters. They think the voters are stupid and gullible, frankly, and that they can be conned. I think the voters have more sense than that.
You know, you mentioned the moments that stick with us, and I go back to another viral moment that happened this last week, and it was the former chief of Border Patrol agent that was ordered by the Biden Harris administration to cover up the disastrous numbers at the border, and when he said this to Congress. It is still at this moment going viral.
Once where it was out the border was far easier to cross. Sandy went to over one hundred sias in twenty twenty two, well over that in twenty twenty three, and even more than that registered this year. These are only the ones we caught. At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAS or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat
at the border. Fentanyl is another issue. The San Diego area sees between eighty and ninety percent of the methan phetamine in fentanyl seizures. Annually for our entire country. With little enforcement at the border, these drugs were coming through in mass. During my last year in San Diego, the price for a single pill of fentanyl, for example, went from ten dollars to twenty five cents.
To make matters worse.
During twenty twenty two and twenty three, I had to shut down San Diego traffic checkpoints, which are critical for drug in addiction because the resources had been diverted to the process and release mission.
The large numbers also had.
And still have a negative impact to the San Diego community. I had to release the illegal aliens by the hundreds each day into communities who could not support them. To quiet the problem, two flights a week were provided from San Diego to Texas. These flights simply brought aliens that would have been released in San Diego over to Texas.
I mean, that's got to just make you live it as the Senator from Texas to hear him just say, yeah, they just sent planes and dropped him off in Texas.
Well, of course it does. And for this White House it's all political. And so they've decided Joe Biden, Kamala Harris that they hate Texas and They're perfectly happy to dump as many illegal aliens as they can in Texas. Never mind the millions that we have flooding into our state because of Joe Biden Kamala Harris's open border policies. Now they're flying him in from other states to Texas and it is at the end of the day, completely indefensible.
And my hope is that the Trump campaign puts this issue in front of the voters each and every day because Kamala Harris does not want to talk about this, So.
Let's talk about I think finally, where we are and when it comes to the Senate, which is so important the Senate, if we don't have control of the Senate, it just makes things so hard, even if you've got the White House to get stuff done that can have real change and move us back to where we need to go. A lot of people that walk up to me ask me that I'm sure the same questions they ask you, which is, okay, can we flip the Senate?
Can we get back control of the Senate?
And you've got to look at the swing states, and you got to look at these some tight elections. We thought we were gonna have a good chance in the last the mid terms to get the Senate back.
We didn't.
And so now you look at this this time, what does it look like for us and and and how should people look at these issues and how are they going to work in these swing states.
So, look, there's good news and bad news that The good news is it's a very favorable map for Republicans. There a bunch of Democrat seats that are up in red states or purple states that Trump has a real shot of winning. And so six seven weeks ago, when Biden was at the top of the ticket, Republicans were on track to win four or five six Senate seats. It was set up to be just a fantastic election.
The election is titaned. Kamala replacing Joe Biden at the top of the tickets has moved the race of the Democrats direction. And the reason was Joe Biden was only getting about eighty five percent of Democrats when he was the nominee. Democrats were demoralized, they were dispirited, they were fractured.
And by the way, those eighty five percent that meant fifteen percent we're either going to stay home or we're looking to vote Republican and so it was going to be a big, big Republican year Kamala with her at the top of the ticket, much of the Democrat party has come home and so she's getting anywhere from ninety two to ninety five percent of the Democrats.
That has moved the races.
So right now the Democrats have a fifty one forty nine advantage in the Senate. If you look at if you assume that the polling today is what would happen, and that's not a fair assumption, by the way. We're six weeks out and I think the issue set favors Republicans. But if you assume the polling today is what would happen, then number one, Republicans are going to win West Virginia. It's essentially one hundred percent that we're going to win
West Virginia. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, is the incumbent Senator from West Virginia. He's not running for reelection, and so Jim Justice, the governor, is the Republican nominee. The Democrats have essentially conceded West Virginia. It's such a red state. It went for Trump by thirty eight points last time. We will win West Virginia. That means we start with the Senate at fifty to fifty. Of the remaining swing states, the only one where the Senate candidate is consistently leading
is Montana. But we are consistently leading in Montana. That means if the election day were today and the polls are accurate, the result would be fifty one forty nine, a Republican majority. Now, let's break through state by state. What are the states that are in play, and we'll just go alphabetically through the various swing states.
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That's Blackoutcoffee dot Com slash vertict. Be awake, not woke, that's Blackoutcoffee dot Com slash vertict. Promo code vertict for twenty percent off your first order. All right, Senator, So let's go through these states. And this is when I say to vertical listeners, grab your pen and paper, because this is where on election night you're gonna love watching the results come in With these different states and the knowledge that we're about to give you all.
Right, so let's start with Arizona. The best way typically to consume polling numbers is to look to the Real Clear Politics average and so look their variations among poles. Some polls are more accurate than others. But the way most political professionals do is they look to the polling average, and the theory is the averages sort of. It averages
out the ups and the downs. So if you look to the Real Clear Politics average in Arizona, right now, this is a race between Gayego the Democrat, and Kerry Lake the Republican. Right now, Gayego is leading by four point three points, So that's the average. That's the average of the last four polls that have been done in that race. Trump has a good chance of winning Arizona. So right now Trump is outperforming Carrie Lake in that state, but four points is very winnable. She can win that race.
But according to the average, right now, the Democrats are ahead. Let's move to Michigan. If you look at Michigan, the two candidates are Slotkin the Democrat and Mike Rodgers the Republican. In Michigan, the Real Clear Politics average is the Democrat at five point one percent, So again five points is pretty close, but it does show an advantage right now for the Democrats, and that's an average of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Eight polls in the last month.
The Democrat is ahead by an average of five point one percent.
All right, let's go to Montana.
Montana, I mentioned is the brightest spot in terms of the pickup. This is a battle between John Tester the Democrat, the incumbent, and Tim Sheehey the Republican. And she He is a head on an average of five point two points, so that's sizable.
It's not decisive.
Tester could still come back and win it, but that's been a consistent lead. If you look at the last four polls, she He plus six, she He plus seven, she He plus six, and she He plus two, so that that's been a consistent lead. All right, Let's look to Nevada. So Nevada, the numbers are bumpier. The incumbent is Jackie Rosen. She's a Democrat. Sam Brown is a Republican. The real Clear Politics average is Rosen by eight point
eight percent, so that's a pretty sizable lead. Nevada is another state where Trump is very competitive and so he could win Trump it may be that the polling numbers or understating where Brown is but eight point eight percent is there's some distance to be closed on the average polling there.
I'll ask you this real quick before you move forward, because it's a question. I know everybody's asking their head. All right, you just mentioned this state, and then you mentioned Arizona earlier where Trump is leading but Carlake is not there. How often do you see a presidential election cycle historically where the Republican wins in the state but the person next down the bound the Senate race loses, where people walk in there yes for Trump and no
for the Senate candidate. Is that happened very often?
Yeah, that that happens with some regularity. And Trump in most states is going to get more votes than the down ballot Republicans. For one thing, there are people that come in that just vote president and leave. And then there are also there will be some voters in every one of these states who votes for Trump at the top of the ticket and then for a Democrat Senate candidate. I wish they didn't. It is frustrating as all get out, but there exists, and to.
Because way, you're like voting against your own interests of what you're saying you want for the country. With the President, well, he needs the votes in the House and Senate to get that agenda done.
Yeah, and there tend to be more crossover voters who do Trump and a Democrat Senate candidate, then there are crossover voters who vote Kamala Harris at a Republican Senate candidate. It just at the end of the day, it has tended to be a one way ratchet. Let's go to Ohio. Ohio is the next closest after Montana, and the two candidates are shared. Brown the Democrat, who's the incumbent, Bernie Mourno the Republican. The Real Claire Politics average is the
Democrat up by three point six percent. So the last three polls were plus two plus five, plus four, So Ohio is definitely winnable. Trump is extremely likely to win Ohio. He could win Ohio by double digits. But right now Brown is polling substantially ahead of where Kamala Harris is
in Ohio. And so Ohio is a state where there are a number of voters right now who say they're voting for Donald Trump, and yet a Democrat senator who will fight to undermine everything Trump does every single day in the Senate, Which is why I wish voters wouldn't do that. I don't think that makes sense, and I think it ends up working against yourself. But nonetheless, there's some voters that do all right. Pennsylvania. So Pennsylvania is
probably the most important battle around in the country. It is the state most likely to decide the presidential race. The incumbent is Bob Casey is a Democrat. Dave McCormick the Republican, a very good friend of mine who I've endorsed in campaigned with multiple times. Across Pennsylvania. The Real
Clear Politics average is four point nine percent. And so starting from so back in August, there was a tie, then Casey plus one, then Casey plus seven, then case plus eighth andk C plus four, then Casey plus nine, then Casey plus five and k C plus five, and Casey plus five, then Casey plus nine, and then the Washington Post the most recent poll showed it as a tie. So look, there's some there's some variability on that. So the last two polls were Casey plus nine and a tie.
I mean, that's a big delta between those two. Yeah, and so, and so it's why you tend to look to the average, because the average kind of takes out the highs and lows. And so four point nine percent, you would say, right now the Democrats have an advantage, But four point nine percent you can definitely close between now an election day, and I think the issue set favors us all right. Maryland, Maryland is a state that
shouldn't be a battleground. It's a very blue state. It is going to go it is going to go for Kamala Harris by double digits. And yet you've got Larry Hogan, Larry Hogan, the former governor. There is a Republican, very popular governor running against a Democrat. Also Brooks. The Real Clear Politics average is six point eight percent. But again there's been a lot of variability on this. So back in August there was a poll that was a tie, and then Democrat plus five, Democrat plus seven, and then
there was one just recently Democrat plus fifteen. So Maryland is a race that is winnable. But to do that, Hogan is going to have to outperform Trump by twenty points or more that ain't easy to do. That that is a big, big delta. He was the governor there, he was very popular, and he's the only he's the only Republican who has a prayer to win in Maryland. But Maryland is not an easy state for a Republican to win. And the final battleground is Wisconsin. Wisconsin is
Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who's the incumbent. Eric Hovedy is the Republican running against her. The real Clear Politics average is Democrat four point six percent, so again close winnable,
but right now the Democrats have the advantage. Although it's interesting if you look at the polls, but going back to August, it was Democrat plus six, Democrat plus five, Democrat plus eight, but then the last four polls have been Democrat plus three, Democrat plus three, Democrat plus four, Democrat plus three.
So the race is.
In the last couple of weeks and it's about a three and a half point differential in the in the last four polls, which means Wisconsin is very winnable. And look, every one of these states that I mentioned is winnable by the Republicans. But for us to win, the numbers need to shift four or five points. And to do that, we've got to focus on the issues. And the issues are the same issues as the presidential the economy, inflation,
illegal immigration, and crime. And if we focus on those, I think we've got a real shot at winning every one of those six weeks.
It's getting here very quickly, election day and early voting. It's incredible we are in it now. I hope you guys will take the show, share it wherever you are on social media. Make sure that subscriber auto download button will keep covering these important poll numbers as they come out. And on those in between days, as you know, we do the show Monday, Wednesday Friday. On those in between days, grab my show, that Ben Ferguson podcast, and I'll keep you up to date on the latest breaking news as
well the Center. I will see you back here Wednesday morning.