July 31, 2025 • 47 mins
Is the Republican Party becoming the new home for working-class Black and Latino voters? Ryan welcomes pollster Zachary Donnini to break down the latest polling trends and demographic shifts shaking up the 2026 election. They explore Trump’s growing appeal among nontraditional GOP voters, the ideological civil war within the Democratic Party, and what this realignment means for the future of both parties. If you're tracking voter behavior, political polarization, or the future of American politics, this episode is a must-listen. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to a Numbers a Game with Ryan Gretzky.
Thank you all for being here on this Thursday episode.
So we have two things to really get to, one
being the most important political story that no one is
talking about, and then the other one will be pulling,
which I'll get to in a second. But first, for
the major political story, it doesn't have doing with President
Trump or a campaign per se. It has to do
with Apple and their new iOS system. Apple's preparing to
(00:27):
launch iOS twenty six, which is the latest upgrade to
their operating system. One of the new features that all
text messages from unrecognized numbers are put into a spam
folder on your phone and you will not be notified,
kind of like how email works. Well, only numbers that
are in your contact list or you have contacted first
(00:47):
you'll receive a notification. For this is going to affect
a lot of industries. It's going to affect restaurants who
text you that your table is ready. It will affect doctors'
offices that text you say confirm your appointment. It will
affect uber or two step authentication apps, and other things
that send you notifications from these little phone numbers is
short code numbers and you have to respond yes or no.
(01:10):
They're all going in the spam folder. Another industry usually
impacted by this is campaigns. It's the industry at work
in so it's what I'm thinking of you first and foremost.
The first one first part of that industry will be
hurt is fundraising. Seventy percent of all small dollar fundraising
comes from SMS text messaging fundraising. Now, I know those
(01:32):
texts are very, very annoying because what it usually is
is people prospecting, buying names and phone numbers and email
addresses from other people's lists, and sending fundraising messages out
Now with somebody who has a decent sized house file,
that's the file that you own of all them people
who go donated to you. I don't give my house
file to anybody, so I don't do that prospecting element.
(01:55):
But it will hurt other people who do because I
am the exception and not the rule. Right, that will
be resulting in They're estimating five hundred million dollars of
lost revenue for Republican campaigns in one in a first
year loan thing. Five hundred million is how that's that's
(02:16):
grassroots money. That's retirees. That's middle class people, that's upper
middle class people. But that is the money that is
the lifeblood that conservatives and populace use to push back
against establishment figures, against the George Soros's, the Taylor swifts,
the billionaires, the tech for oligarch, the Wall Street money
that is what Republican campaigns need to be competitive comes
(02:40):
from small dollar donations that that we're going to see
that shrink substantially, as we did with email when Google
changed the way that you receive email, increasing the number
of campaign emails you were getting into your main box
versus your spam box. There were ways that campaigns worked
(03:02):
it so that way to prove I guess the authenticity
that they're not trying to scam you, they're not trying
to take your Social Security number. And fundraising emails still
manage to get your inbox, not all the time, and
fundraise email as a form of fundraising has decreased substantially,
but it still exists. It's still there. This way, I'm
not getting author like the messages seeing your inbox at all.
(03:27):
This will devastate the fundraising efforts on the part of
Republican campaigns. The NRSC sent an email saying that they
alone will lose about twenty five million dollars. And I've
heard that President Trump has been made aware of this.
It may affect his fund it will not make It
will absolutely affect his fundraising and his packs fundraising. And
this will affect certainly any Republican candidate that is running
(03:50):
for president. Again, the other area of campaign work that
it affects is the get out the vote effort, the
gootp operation, right, because it's their very hard to reach
low propensity voters. There's only so much time of the
day to door knock, there's only so many volunteers anyone has.
Text messaging. Text messaging has become one of the key
(04:11):
ways people reach voters because it's so cheap and they
have such high levels of people opening up the text messages. Right,
It costs about maybe a penny to two pennies per
text message to send out on a campaign. Anyone charging
more than two cents is probably ripping you off, FYI
if anyone's listening to this, but two two and a
half cents perfectly reasonable if you're going to the four
(04:31):
cents ranger being ripped off two and a half pennies though,
is it very very cheap cost to send to tens
of thousands of people to remind them, Hey, election day
is on Tuesday. It's you know, I'm the Canada, I'm
the Republican and the Democrat, the conservative running in this election.
Please vote for me without getting that, you know, having
(04:52):
that avenue to reach voters, even to send them your commercial,
because that's what candids do now too, they send them
their commercial. They're at They'm not just asking for money,
They're saying, this is who I am. Please consider voting
for me. You lose a key way to sit there
and reach voters. Think of it like this. When I
was working for Michael Bloomberg's campaign two thousand and nine,
(05:15):
this is his third term mayoral election. In two thousand
and nine, the rule on the Bloomberg campaign was you
had to touch your voter seven times. That means a
text message, a robocall, a door knocker, a mailer or whatever.
A commercial. They had to see your name seven times
to know who you were and know you were running
for office. Now, the Bloomberg campaign had unlimited funds. He
(05:36):
was funding himself. I mean, we were able to do
whatever he wanted to do. That's not the case for
almost any campaign. There's very type budgets on these campaigns
to reach to vote, to reach voters, it's incredibly hard
and it's not the nineties and two thousands anymore where
you could just buy commercial time on the golden hour
(05:56):
of television, which is the hour between Jeopardy, Wheel of
Fortunate your local news. That's when most of the money
for all local news is being made for the TV
networks is being made and when you can maximalize the
number of people likely to vote in an election with commercials,
I mean those that time that hour does still matter.
But when people increasingly watching YouTube, TV, Hulu, you know,
(06:21):
all these other things rather than watching either basic television
or a cable, your way of reaching voters has to expand.
Because the media market has diversified so much. Texting is
a major part of that, whether we like it or not.
Gutting that means low propensity voters are less likely to
ever hear about a Canada is running. Not everyone gets
(06:44):
the attention that you know a president does. They just don't.
Joe Rogan and Theobiana are not going to do PSA's
every special election, saying Joe Schmoe is running in South
Carolina's fifty third. You see, they rely on cheat methods
kids to get to voters, you know, mailboxes, inboxes, front doors, whatever,
(07:05):
that's just the nature of campaigning. Taking that away really
hurts conservatives more than Democrats, because we're the party of
lower pensity and working class voters. The last part that
I think that people should be aware of the political
industry that will hurt by this substantially is polling. People
don't have landlines anymore. You know, I really want a landline,
(07:27):
you know, me myself, I actually I would love to get
a landline, but I people do not have landlines. They
are relying increasingly on cell phones and especially texting. That
is a key form of how a lot of these
new polling companies are getting a hold of voters is
by texting them and saying would you like to participate
in that survey? It takes a lot of text and
(07:48):
a lot of effort to get respondents and then to
double check them and to figure out, you know, if
they're registered, what party they are, and YadA, YadA, YadA,
and wait the thing, wait the polling answers. All of
that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort,
and it's going to become way harder. All the good
new pulsters that Nail twenty twenty four all use this
(08:09):
as a method to sit there and to get a
hold of people. If that's taken out of the equation,
now polling will be so much more difficult, so much
more expensive, and probably a lot less accurate even than
it is currently, which is a big problem. I know
that these text mentors are annoying. I get it because
I'm annoyed by them. I mean, right the last November,
(08:30):
I was ready to throw my phone and said, well
I get it. I one hundred and ten percent get it.
But that is the way Americans communicate now. That is
the way to reach people. And when you were sitting
there and you were saying, I don't want them to
reach me in this way, guess who wings People who
control the airwaves, who dominate stuff in all the traditional methods,
(08:55):
in all the traditional ways, right, People who people who
are intel television all the time, the establishment news media's narratives.
People who can get on big podcasts and big television
shows and get those exclusives. Not many candidates can, not
every candidate can. I think it's worth remembering that. So
(09:18):
I know that the NRSCS word, I know the rnc's word.
I know the President Trump's team has heard about it
and they are concerned. Let's see if Apple goes through
with it or kind of changes it a little bit
to make sure that some people can get some messages across,
or even if it was an opt in feature that
you had to opt in that all the messages come through,
because let's say you don't want to have to, you know,
(09:38):
not get your uber notification of your ubers on its
way or whatever. I'm sure that they people would choose
not to opt in, not everybody. Some some would choose that,
but not everyone would choose never to opt in. So
we'll see the other thing that's gonna it's my pet
peeve that I want to talk about. I know I
sound very annoyed. I'm not really annoyed. It's just this
is a pet peep is that when I do the podcast,
(10:00):
the Monday Show, I have to tape it on Thursday
or Friday. Well, polling sometimes comes up over the weekend
and I miss it for the Monday Show and I
like to present you guys with all the information I
possibly can and That's what happened this weekend. The Wall
Street Journal had a poll by Fabreezi Elite. Now, for
those of you who are super student to politics, you've
heard the name for Breeza before. That is a band
(10:20):
named Tony Fabrizio. He is a polling legend. He has
been around for decades. He worked for Pappy Cannon and
Bob Dolean, Ram Paul and David Prividu and you know
you name him, He's worked for them, and he is
most notably President Trump's polster. I think that part of
the reason that President Trump's team is so confident in
(10:41):
this last election is that his polling, which was dead on,
said no, you're going to win. I think they were
concerned with a popular vote, but they were like, no,
the path of the lictoral college is very very clear.
I met Tony Fabrizio joined the JD. Vans campaign, and
I always been a big fan of his work. But
him as a person, he is, you know, or Italian
like me from Queens, New York, a total paison and
(11:04):
it was like meeting somebody you always known, like we've
known each other forever. And he's a great guy. He's
a lot of fun, but he's also super bright at polling. Okay,
so Fabrizio Lee's poll is different than most of the
narratives you've seen from a lot of other polsters like Gallup.
First of all, Democrats are ahead in the generic ballot
(11:25):
in the twenty twenty sixth election by three points. They
leave forty six to forty three. Now, that is a
good number for Democrats. That's enough to win the House
majority for sure, but that is not where they were
in twenty eighteen. Now. In twenty eighteen at this time,
Democrats le Republicans between six and fourteen points in the
(11:45):
generic ballot in most polling. So three is enough to
win the five seats needed eight seats whatever, It is
not enough to win thirty fifty sixty seats. It's not
going to be the wave election as of right now
that Democrats had in the past. And part of that
is that the Democratic brand is so far in the dirt.
(12:06):
Democrats have a negative thirty point rating right now. Republicans
have negative eleven. I mean something Iver said there and
we're dancing about, but negative thirty points is horrific. It's
the worst I have ever It's the worst not only
I've ive ever seen it's the worst ever taken by
Tony Fabrizio and at the Thriezo Leepole that is absolute
(12:27):
gutto trash and basically all you are is just the
default non presidential ticket, and that's why they're going to
support you if you're going to win this election. Now,
for President Trump, his ratings were not that bad. He
had a forty six percent approval rating fifty two percent
disapproval rating. For President Trump, that's pretty good. Forty six
(12:48):
to fifty two is pretty good for him historically, definitely
better than his first term. His strongest issue remains immigration,
especially when it comes to the border, and he's done
a phenomenal job, so that's easily understandable. Economy and inflation, though,
is where voters are continued to worry. Now they've gotten
a little bit more optimistic since all the conversations of
(13:10):
recession and depression have kind of subsided, but on the
issues of inflation and tariffs, they remain worried. And I
think part of it is that they are worried obviously
that the arriffs are going to increase costs to them.
But we are still dealing with the aftermath of Biden inflation,
where inflation was outpacing wages, not for everything. I mean,
(13:33):
prices for eggs have come down and gas have come down,
but the overall average has not come down to like
twenty nineteen levels where when he was president last time.
It's going to take several years of wages outpacing inflation
to get to the power, to getting into a purchasing
power that voters feel comfortable with. And until that happens,
(13:56):
they're going to blame who's ever in office for doing it.
So right now President Trump is earning a lot of
that blame. It's just the way the politics works. I
think that the other I think it's a breath of
fresh air for President Trump, though being down negative six
is not terrible. If things pick up. Though, if things
get better, it's going to be in a place where
(14:19):
maybe Republicans and Democrats go into this election in a
tide place. And in that case, I think, especially with
people redistricting in states redistricting, the House, becomes a question
of whether Democrats win it or not. The Senate, there's
really no path for the Democrats to win in this
election cycle. It becomes it's almost impossible right now, it
becomes virtually impossible in a situation where Democrats are only
(14:43):
my three points or are tied. Let's start with Democrats
and their poll. Recently, a Data for Progress poll asked
New York City Democrats of their favorable unfavorable opinion of
several prominent Democratic leaders, and guess who is the most popular.
It's not the Obama's or the Clintons, or the Bidens
or Kamala Harris. The most popular Democrat too Democrat voters
(15:05):
in New York City is Bernie Sanders. He has a
plus sixty two point favorability rating. AOC is right behind
him with sixty points. Zoram Mandani has plus forty two points.
Mandani is more popular than Governor Kathy Hogel, Minority Leader
Hakim Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, or Andrew Cuomo. Nearly
(15:29):
half of Democrat voters in New York City said they
are swayed by Mandanni because he's a fierce critic of
Israel and sixty two percent of Democrats who want federal
government to reduce their support of Israel. Sixty six percent
of Democrats in New York City so their sympathies lie
with Palestine now with Israel and a majority of Democrats
that they are going to support candidates that favor reducing
(15:50):
foreign aid to Israel. Obviously, Israel isn't the only motivating
factor in this election or any election, but it says
a lot about where the Democrat Cretit Party is moving
and the place that they are, because there's things to
criticize Israel Overly, there's things to criticize every country. Where
you can criticize Mongolia, you can criticize anybody. Right. There
(16:13):
is an element, though, of the criticism towards Israel rooted
in anti yes, anti Zionism, and anti Semitism. But what
I pick up on is the routiness in anti whiteness,
the viewpoint by the far left to view everything as
(16:35):
a fight between the oppressors and the oppressed, and that
is a lot to do with racial identity. So because
the Jews in Israel are perceived to be whiter than
the Palestinians, they are the oppressors and the Palestinians are
the oppressed, and everything is view to that lends capitalism
and America and race relations in America, policing, everything is
(16:59):
viewed with that lens, and the Democratic Party has adopted
that mentality as being far left. And I think that
if you are Hakeem Jeffries or Jack Schumer or Kirsten
Jellibrand or Kathy Hochel, and you're looking at your base
of your party and how they are responding, it's going
to be adapt or watch your political career die. My
(17:20):
guest this week is a super smart data analysis who's
seen the emerging trends in both the Trump Republican Party
and the far left coalitions of the Democratic Party, and
he's going to tell us what he sees. Coming up next.
Stay tuned with me on today's episode is Zachary Dnini.
He is a data analyst and for data scientists from
(17:41):
Yale Polling. Zachary, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
So there were two polls that recently come out. There
was the Fabrizio Leape poll which looked at national trends,
which showed Trump at a decent spot, a negative six
percent overall, but forty six to fifty two, which was
for Trump, it's pretty good. And then there was another
poll from Data for Progress that analyzed and looked at
which Democrats had the highest name appeal from especially new
(18:07):
York City Democrats, which are probably more progressive than the
average Democratic voter, but they're not that strong of an outlier.
I wouldn't say they're probably so the right of Portland,
but to like the leath of let South Carolina. There
was a narrative after the Mendanni primary that Mendanni and
Trump voters were a lot alike, or that there was
(18:29):
some overlap in the vote. Is that anything you noticed
in the data? Is that provable at all? Or is
that just a narrative because there were a lot of
minorities and young people in both coalitions.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, so I think a lot of the people demographically
who have shifted towards Trump from Biden from twenty twenty
to twenty twenty four and who voted for Mom Donnie
are similar in the sense that they are young. Right,
the Trump did as well as a GOP candidate has
done with young voters as we've seen in decades, and
(19:02):
Mom Donnie's win was first and foremost fueled by young voters.
What I would say is so. Nate Cone at the
New York Times did some great voter role analysis from
his poll matching to the voter file. His determination was
that only six percent of voters in the New York
(19:22):
City Democratic mayor primary voted for said they voted for Trump,
and my analysis about a third of those are Orthodox
Jews alone, which Cuoma won by by massive margins over
Mom Donnie. So we're talking about only one in twenty
five voters in that in the Democratic primary election being
Trump voters. Did Mom Donnie do well with those Trump voters?
(19:45):
Maybe he did. He did well in you know, Asian
and Hispanic areas that are registered DEM and shifted towards
Trump in twenty twenty four, but there aren't that many
of them, So if he did well, it was at
a small scale and it didn't contribute that much to
his overall victory.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
When you look at the Trump's margins and how the
Republican Party under him has changed, he presented I think
a graph of like what regions had shifted to the
right left, and there was immense right wing shift in
like southern California and New York City. How and tons
of like blue specs in suburban and even rural areas,
(20:24):
especially outside of Atlanta, for example. How how does the
GOP coalition look differently than it did in twenty twelve?
Is it just would have happened no matter what, because
you know it has changed among other right wing parties
in Europe. Let's say, whatever, is it inevitable or is
(20:45):
it really a Trump thing? How does it look different?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So, first of all, I think Trump definitely has a
unique appeal, especially from a turnout standpoint, to work in
class Republican base voters. The Republican base lapped the Democratic
base twenty twenty four. You know, if Trump was on
the ballot again in twenty twenty eight, I think would
be the same way. With Trump off the ballot, who
knows it depends, it will be a new dynamic. But
(21:11):
that being said, I do think there's a little bit
of inevitability here in this sense. So Hispanic voters shifted
from sixty five percent Biden to fifty four percent Harris
according to my estimates, that's a huge shift. And that
shift was concentrated with people who self identify as either
moderate or conservative. And like a lot of people say, oh,
(21:33):
you know, Hispanic and black voters, they're getting way more
conservative recently, high and I say, well, they're getting way
more Republican. But the self idea, ideology stuff is not
changing that much. So For example, this is CCCS cooperative
election study data from Harvard. Forty five percent of black
(21:54):
people who I self identify as moderate who are eighteen
to twenty nine won those the young black moderates by
forty five points. Harris won black moderates who are sixty
five years or older by ninety three points. So what
we're seeing is a lot of people who voted for
Biden are moderate or conservative, are people of color. And
(22:17):
then flip the Trump and then we're also seeing generational
churn where young, moderate and conservative non white voters are
more open to voting for the Republican Party than their
elders who are literally dying off. Because we get the
generational churn every election.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Right right, And that I think is you know, a
while ago, I would say maybe the twenty sixteen. Every
time working in Republican politics, you'd always hear what we're
going to focus on. We're going to focus on the
black voter. And back in twenty twelve, you probably were
like a kid. There was this big who has this
big emphasis on trying to push a gay marriage initiative
(22:57):
in North Carolina because an anti game marriage in a
ship of North Carolina. Because they were going to turn
the black vote out, and the Black vote is against
game marriage, and they'll vote against the Democrats. And I
believe it was twenty twelve, I'm pretty sure I was,
and it they voted against gay marriage, and then they
voted for Barack Obama. And I said to people, you
are going to have to wait for a generational change
(23:18):
and to even make the smallest impact, because there's just
no way I guess that general change has just happened.
When I'm going to break down the vote by three ways,
the Asian vote's too hard to sit there and try
to I forget because it's not that many of them.
But if you look at first of all, the black vote,
is there any area of the country that it really
(23:40):
didn't move like that there was a thing that changed so.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Throughout the entire country, my estimates have going from eighty
six percent Biden, sorry, eighty nine percent Biden to eighty
six percent Harris. That's definitely a slight change. That's roughly
by as much as that the country change as a whole.
So it's not even that black voters shifted more than
the country. And right now it appears that black voters
(24:06):
in northern Inner cities, and I use the term inner
city to specifically note these are the black voters who
live in precincts with the highest poverty rates and and
you know, bottom tenth income in the country. And then
and then the South, those those black voters moved a
little bit less. Black voters that lived in the suburbs
(24:29):
or in less black areas trended more to the right
towards Trump. For instance. I think you know, there's actually
a lot of state by state variation in the black vote.
I have Harris still winning ninety four percent of the
black vote in Maryland in twenty twenty four, versus only
eighty six in the countries.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
All so you're saying, wait, so you're saying the less
the more that they lived in mixed race communities, they
were more likely to vote. Yes, that's interesting because you
said that that's the opposite of white voters white voters communities.
Is it, and I'm not trying to put words with
is it? Is it that people assume the political identity
(25:08):
of their neighbors more often?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, I think you know. I'm not a sociologist, but
what I can say is, I think most analysts agree that,
you know, to put it in a sentence. Black voters
are moving away from the Democratic Party because local institutions
are breaking down, such as like the Black Church, and
there's social media. So if I'm a black Conservative, I'm
more exposed to other black conservatives, and you know, that
will facilitate, you know, the growth of more black conservatives
(25:33):
because in the long term, it's unlikely a group stays
ninety five to five as we're just becoming such a
you know, connected country.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
And now education is a not a bigger political indicator
than races, but it is exactly as profound. Well among
the white vote, you marketing very interesting. You said the
only places that there was a sizeable ship to the
laft among white voters were places like Alaska, north of
carob New Mexico, rather Georgia and the areas around Washington, DC.
(26:05):
And you said the only linkage to keeping what some
white voters Democrat was federal job federal employees. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah? I think so there were there were two groups
of white voters who who shifted left. So one is
just Anglo Saxon, upper middle class suburban voters. So think
about the suburbs of Milwaukee, the suburbs of Columbus. These
voters that were up in upper middle class suburbs in
the northeast, who where Irish, Italian, even Jewish, shifted towards
(26:35):
Trump pretty substantially.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
But even Maschusett Yeah, yeah, exactly, Communists again, it's wing, Yeah,
traditionally progress they had a substantial seven point I think
swing towards Trump.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, exactly. I think you get a lot of in
western mass you get those old mining areas. One of
my favorite, like very specific anecdotes from the twenty twenty
four election is there's this town in Montana called Butte,
which is in Irish mining town. So it's in the
middle of the country where there are very few Irish,
Italian Portuguese people. You get this one Irish mining town
(27:08):
that is the biggest trend to the right out of
any you know, similarly sized town in Montana. Sorry, but
to get back to the original point, Yeah, we have
the Anglo Saxon suburban nights around you know, Columbus, Indianapolis, Milwaukee,
but that's not that many people, right, It's a pretty
narrow band of suburbs and excerpts. When we're talking about
the country as a whole, and then you have federal
employees New Mexico, Alaska, and Northern Virginia. And I think
(27:32):
for this November, for people interested in Virginia politics, it's
pretty notable, you know, with with dojan and government cuts.
That's probably one reason span Burger seems to be in
such a strong position right now.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, I think what was I think twenty five thousand
federal jobs have been cut. I might be wrong in
the action number, but it's in the ends of persons,
all right. Then I guess the last point, and the
key point would be the Latino vogue, because that's the
one that everyone would whispering it could happen, It could
happen than it did happen. Were there?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (28:05):
The same with black voters, is that they're not becoming
more conservative, they're just becoming more Republican.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, I think there's evidence Latino voters are becoming a
little bit more conservative. So I don't want to attribute
it to one hundred percent, you know, moderate and conservative
voters voting for Trump more controlling for the identity. But yeah,
another good fact is so, yeah, eighteen to forty four
Hispanic moderates where Harris plus twenty two forty five plus
(28:33):
Hispanic moderates where Harris plus forty two, Right, you get
this twenty point gap just with the with the two
different generations. And specifically there's the young men, young Latino men,
even you know, young black men, young Asian men. The
David Shore from Blue Rovers Research estimates that Trump won
(28:54):
the majority of non white eighteen year old men in
the country, which is a pretty crazy stat if you
would have heard it eight to twelve years ago. So yeah,
you're again just getting young. Young Hispanic men are significantly
more conservative than older Hispanic men. But yeah, even controlling
for that, you know, young Hispanics feel more open to
(29:16):
vote for Trump and vote for Republicans, uh than Yeah,
they're they're older, modern counterparts. And I would I don't
comment on whether you know things are good or bad
normatively a lot as a you know, nonpartisan analyst, but
I think the vast majority of America would agree that
ideological polarization is good. It's you know, it's good to
(29:36):
live in a country where conservatives want to vote for
the conservative party, liberals want to vote for the generally
liberal party. Right, So so this is this is kind
of like nice to see in a way that ideology
is just becoming very predictive with both choices.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
What I find very interesting about the Latino change, even
more than the Black change, is that in areas of
the country where there was really no Trump campaign, Like
Trump wasn't campaigning in Chicago or Los Angeles. He made
one rally event at the Bronx, but he wasn't campaigning
in the Bronx. There was no like door knockers or
(30:10):
what or commercials being run. That's where you saw the
most significant shift because the change was all organic looking.
And I know you don't have a crystal balls. I'm
not saying you are. Do these kinds of changes though,
look predictive that they are continuing or is it a
Trump thing or is it a thing? Like is it
just what's moving?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, it's so hard to know. One one piece of
evidence that makes me think it's not a Trump thing,
but this will stick would be looking at other elections,
like you know, for instance, Canada in the UK, where
non white voters are also trending, you know, towards the
Conservative Party in that country. You saw it in a
(30:52):
lot of like the Asian Canadian suburbs. So you know,
we like to think we're you know, special at America.
I spend ninety eight percent of my time analyzing American politics.
But the kind of two big trends of twenty twenty
four were young men broke really hard for the Republican
Party and Hispanics and Asians, non white voters broke really
hard for the Republican Party. You see that former trend
(31:14):
young men breaking hard in South Korea, Germany, UK. You
see the latter trend in you know, diversified Western elections
recently like UK, Canada, and US all the same. So
that makes me think it will stick some. But then
I guess quickly the counter argument would be, you know,
in twenty twenty four, Democrats did better down ballot with
Asian and Hispanic voters, and they did at the top
(31:36):
of the ballot, so that that would that would be
the count of right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I was thinking of that. I mean, like Ted Cruise
did worse in the Mexico Texas border than Trump did,
but he did better than he did six years prior. Yeah, yeah,
so maybe, yeah, I don't know, I go back and
forth than that. So let's look at the progressive vote
for a second. How And I guess New York City
(32:00):
is not a perfect microcosm of the Democratic Party, but
is what we have right now? Yeah, I guess you
could look at the New Jersey governor's race too, because
it is a good microcosm as well. What are you?
What are we seeing? As far as how the Democrats
are transforming, There's obviously a bigger appeal amongst seniors. As
(32:21):
I always sell, People always ask me, like, why are
seniors going so far left? I say, because the seniors
in your head that you're thinking of, where seniors are
probably dead by now. This is a very old reference,
but I don't know if you'll know, like the all
in the family reference of like Archie Bunker is dead now,
but Meadhead is a senior citizen. Like that kind of transformation,
generational transformation happened. So like Henry Fond is dead, but
(32:44):
Jane Fond is a senior. So the progressive activists of
the sixties are seventy five. The The interesting thing about
that group of like older maybe progressive people being such
a comminant part of the Democratic Party and them losing
so many working class voters is that what's partially fueling
(33:09):
the far left movement is the ones who are left.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Over exactly exactly, going back to the first thing we
talked about here with how Momdani did well in majority
Asian and Hispanic areas that shifted to Trump. Yet you know,
New York Times Nate Cone has only five percent of
the turnout actually being Trump voters. What you're getting is
the base of voters that anchors Democrats in kind of
(33:34):
like moderate center left neoliberal candidates. Is usually has historically
been conservative Asian, Hispanic and Black voters and moderate Asian
Hispanic and Black voters who still vote in Democratic primaries,
and the moderate block voters are still there right all
in all, in twenty twenty four, they stuck around well,
especially in cities in New York where you're getting more
and more Asian and Hispanic vote versus Black vote. The
(33:58):
moderate and conservative Asian and Hispanics left the party in
twenty four basically probably for good, right, because I don't
think anyone thinks that it's a sustainable strategy for Democrats
to win sixty percent of self id and conservative Hispanics
in the future, and.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
That happened in sixteen, and yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Maybe maybe not sixty percent.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I would have a reference point though, like, oh, this
this was how long ago that they were winning.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Sixty exactly, and yeah, probably wasn't quite sixty, but you know,
it was getting around there. And yeah, so now that
those voters are gone, they're not anchoring the party anymore,
and like the Democrats are kind of stuck between a
rock and a hard place. This there's this Wall Street
Journal poll that had Democrats at thirty three percent favorable,
(34:47):
Democratic parties thirty three percent favorable, which got a lot
of press. The part of that poll I thought was
even more interesting is that sixty percent of Americans say
Democrats have moved too far left. Which, you know, if
you're trying to get fifty percent of the vote for Democrats,
you need to convince one in six people who think
Democrats have moved too far left to vote for you.
(35:08):
On the other side, you have you know, democrats or
i should say progressives who have proven they're not afraid
to not vote for the presidential candidate. About My estimate
is one in two hundred voters would have voted for
Harris and Democrats but didn't because of Gaza. That's like,
you know, that's a Senate seat in Pennsylvania that's halfway
(35:29):
to the tipping point of the House.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
You know, it's like, that's not what is that as
a percentage point five point five percent percentage? Okay, yeah,
half a percent? Yeah, so that was failing. Frantic people
like that.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yeah, but I should do it to half a percent.
So I get that from polling and then kind of
you know, if you do some rough assumptions with the
New York City mayor race, you can get about that
one percent of people didn't vote for Harris in twenty
twenty four and then voted for Momdani in the primary,
(36:08):
which you know, as we said, we assume New York
City would be overrepresented there. But either way you're you're getting. Yeah,
you're getting the you know, sixty percent of people think
Democrats have moved too far left, and then you're getting
the current energy and success and turnout in the Democratic
Party being on the last wanting to pull the party.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
As the Democrats become increasingly more progressive and Republicans become
like this mishmash of working class voters. Where do moderates
find themselves?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah, some gallup pulling recently is that thirty seven percent
of the country's moderate, thirty six percent conservative, twenty five
percent liberal right. So you get the thirty six conservative
twenty five liberal. It's been pretty consistent over the past
couple decades. This because Democrats aren't winning conservative minorities anymore.
They need to win the lines share of moderates or
(37:01):
they need an extreme dominating turnout advantage from their base. Right,
there's basically two options. Third option is that maybe you
could argue a you know, left wing candidate like AOC
could also do really well with working class moderate you know,
Hispanics and Asian people. But overall, Democrats are going to
have to be winning the majority of moderates at a minimum,
(37:22):
ideally more like sixty to seventy percent for them. So
I think what that means is Democrats are going to
be you know, taking losses if they if they don't
win moderates. Right, the median voter theorem a view of politics,
is backed a lot. I think there's some good split
ticket data from Lukshaia Jann twenty twenty four about how
(37:44):
moderate Democratic House candidates ran better. There's always you know,
a fight in the party between the kind of moderate
popularist wing and the you know, progressive wing, And the
reality is that there's just more evidence recently that the
moderate populist wing to win elections. The exception to that
(38:05):
is in maybe lower turnout elections like you know, mid
terms or off cycle elections, that that turnout edge can
get really dominating for Democrats, and many progressive Democrats would
say that their candidates can incite that enthusiasm and get
that turnout edge for them.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
So is is an AOC or an AOC style candidate
being the Democratic nomine eventually inevitable? Though with that kind
of equation in the.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Mix, I think it's it's getting close to to inevitable
in the sense that the all of the excitement and
enthusiasm and the Democratic Party right now is you know,
from the left and from that wing of the party.
I also think just in the near future for twenty
twenty eight, there will be a lot of different candidates
fighting over the you know, moderate wing. There could just
(38:52):
be one candidate AOC who immediately gets you know, the
progressive lane to herself, which is which is always an
advantage to coalesce sooner in a primary. How effective that
general election campaign will be, I have no idea. I
think it's completely feasible that AOC could do better with
you know, Hispanic moderates because a lot of people's ideology
(39:14):
isn't as strict as you know. I like to think
about it, you know, like here's a line and on
one side super conservative, one side super liberal. Some people
vote based on vibes and stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
That true? All right, Zachi? Where can people go to
read more of your analysis? I think your stuff so
interesting and worth looking at.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
You can find me on Twitter at Zachary Danini, d
O N and I and I and then I also
have a substack at Zacharydanini dot com. I write on
a little less, but if I have even more thoughts
than usual and I can't put all of them onto
my Twitter, you know you'll get some articles.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Well, Zachary, thank you for being this podcast. I really
appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
You're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowsky.
We'll be right back after this message. Now it's time
for the Ask Me Anything segment of the show. If
you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything,
email me Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot com. That's
ryanat Numbers Game podcast dot com. I read all your emails.
I really appreciate them. I'm not just saying that, Like,
(40:17):
I really do love getting these emails in the ad.
I think an important part to the show, so please
email me. The first one comes from Peter FuMO. He writes, Ryan,
my wife and I have a share a timeshare every
odds summer in Vermont. Two years ago I saw BLM scigns.
This year I actually saw Trump signs. I know it's anecdotal,
but is there any movement from to the right in
(40:39):
very blue Vermont? Vermont? Peter, Great, Sorry, Peter, great question.
I'm going to edit that out. I mean whatever, Peter,
great question about Vermont. I also love Vermont. I vacation
Vermont every single year. I go to Woodstock, I go
to mom Pelly. I love Vermont. It's an amazing state. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
So highly recommend any going there. If they have not,
(41:03):
here's them at Vermont. There was a shift to the
right from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four. Trump gained
about a point and a half a little more than
a point and a half, one point six percent, while
Kama lost about the same thing, maybe two and a
half points. I guess the number went to independence and
he did flip a county. He flipped, one of the
northern counties of Vermont that borders Canada. That being said,
(41:24):
he only got thirty two percent of the vote, though
he got one hundred and nineteen thousand votes overall, I
think like six five hundred voters shifted to Trump. That's
not that many, right. It was a shift, wasn't a
big ship. It was lower than the shift nationwide. So
now you're not seeing a shift towards Trump. You may
have seen more vocal Trump supporters, and I've seen Trump
(41:45):
flags in Vermont, but that's not what you're seeing really there.
The shift in Vermont towards Republicans, though, did happen because
of Governor Phil Scott. Now, Governor Phil Scott is a
liberal Republican, there's no doubting that, But unlike so many
other Republicans governors of blue states, he actually campaigned for
Republicans running down ballot. First, he flipped the lieutenant governor's
(42:09):
race was his seat. Rather in Vermont, like in a
few other states, the lieutenant governor and governor runs separately
from each other, So he flipped the lieutenant governor seat.
John Rogers is now the new Republican Lieutenant governor. He's
the first Republican lieutenant governor that had a Republican governor
since twenty ten, so that's a big deal. But he
campaigned down ballot and he broke the Republicans, sorry, the
(42:31):
Democrats supermajority in the state Senate. Democrats went from having
twenty two seats to having sixteen and Republicans were from
having thirteen sorry, from seven to thirteen. So he gained
six Senate seats for Republicans, almost winning the majority, only
was down by three seats. And in the state legislature,
he gained nineteen Republican State House seats. Vermont has a
(42:53):
ton of state House seats for such a small state,
but so nineteen state House seats, six state Senate seats,
and a statewide elected office, that being a lieutenant governor's seat.
So Phil Scott did make the state go right and
Republicans have more of a footprint there than they've had
in a very very long time. So if you're seeing
anything any trends in Vermont, it's Phil Scott voters. It's
(43:13):
not really President Trump voters, but anyway, that's it Levermont.
Next question comes from Austin Bull. He says Hey, Ryan,
big fan of your podcast and enjoy geeking out over
the numbers. You do a great job of cutting through
the numbers and helping a regular guy like myself understand
the bigger picture. My question is on popular governors choosing
to run or not run for Senate seats. It seems
Democrats to do a much better job again their guys
(43:35):
to run Hick and Looper or Cooper, et cetera. Republicans
continually miss out in recruitments camp jucy SONUNU now that
the biggest fan of Larry Hogan, but at least he
got into the fight and tried in Maryland. Do you
think that they think that he can be president? Or
do damages do a better job of bulling their guys
to run. Also, curious everything young kin is saving for
a twenty eight run or he might be luck in
(43:58):
the Senate seat in twenty twenty, I guess twenty thirty,
or run for governor again in twenty nine. Love to
hear your thoughts. Austin. Okay, So, Austin, great question. I
think that it's a mixed back right. Larry Hogan definitely
bit the bullet. He knew he was gonna have a
tough time running, and I respect Larry Hogan. Larry Hogan
(44:20):
was a Republican governor of a Democratic state who made
the Supreme Court of that state Republican, unlike Charlie Baker,
who appointed Democrats the Massachusetts Supreme Court. He campaigned for
fair districting maps or Republicans could at least fight for
a second Republican House seat in the US House Representatives.
He campaigned for Republicans down ballot, and in twenty eighteen,
(44:43):
Republicans on one I think marilynd was the only state
Republicans gained seats in the state Senate for in a
very tough Republican year. I think that speaks of Larry
Hogan's character as a party man. Larry Hogan was not
about Larry Hogan. Larry Hogan about the party. So often
when you see these Republicans in these blue states, like
(45:06):
a Chris Christie type and Arnold Schwarzenegger type, they are
about themselves, about promoting their brand right as that who
they are. They are these great unifiers that can win
these very tough seeds to build a national profile. They're
not really party people, which is you know, upsetting, and
they should they should be Party people. I think that
(45:28):
it's a question of which person you're talking about. Like
I have heard, and this is all alleged, but I
have heard that Brian Kemp is absolutely running for president
in twenty twenty eight, that he has this eye set
on the prize and that he thinks that he can win.
The Christ i've heard, is in the same exact boat
that he thinks that he can be president. Now, remember
(45:49):
Son New's father Christ and his father John sudo was
the chief of staff for President George Herbert Walker Bush.
And the New family is one of these political dynasties
in New Hampshire that kind of have always assumed that
one day one of them will be president. So I
think that that is definitely in their eyes right now.
(46:11):
I don't know why Jucy didn't run, and I've heard
that Youngen is exploring his options, that he was interested
in running for Senate at one point, he's interested in
running for president the other point, I don't know, but
I'm running for God. I don't think he's uner for
governor in twenty nine because I've heard other Republicans have
been waiting to run for governor in twenty nine, So
I don't think he's gonna make that choice yet, but
I think that I think Youngkin's political career is not
(46:35):
over and I wouldn't be surprised if he either ran
for the Senate or run for president, because I think
that he's exploring both. I think that it's just a
question of when and where, how, when and who. So
that's my little inside of that. Thank you though for
this question, love getting them. I will be back again
on Monday, so please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app,
(46:56):
Apple Podcasts wherever you gets your podcast to make sure
you don't miss an episode. It means a lot to
me and it helps promote this podcast. So thank you
guys again. I'll speak to you on Monday.
Welcome back to a Numbers a Game with Ryan Gretzky.
Thank you all for being here on this Thursday episode.
So we have two things to really get to, one
being the most important political story that no one is
talking about, and then the other one will be pulling,
which I'll get to in a second. But first, for
the major political story, it doesn't have doing with President
Trump or a campaign per se. It has to do
with Apple and their new iOS system. Apple's preparing to
(00:27):
launch iOS twenty six, which is the latest upgrade to
their operating system. One of the new features that all
text messages from unrecognized numbers are put into a spam
folder on your phone and you will not be notified,
kind of like how email works. Well, only numbers that
are in your contact list or you have contacted first
(00:47):
you'll receive a notification. For this is going to affect
a lot of industries. It's going to affect restaurants who
text you that your table is ready. It will affect doctors'
offices that text you say confirm your appointment. It will
affect uber or two step authentication apps, and other things
that send you notifications from these little phone numbers is
short code numbers and you have to respond yes or no.
(01:10):
They're all going in the spam folder. Another industry usually
impacted by this is campaigns. It's the industry at work
in so it's what I'm thinking of you first and foremost.
The first one first part of that industry will be
hurt is fundraising. Seventy percent of all small dollar fundraising
comes from SMS text messaging fundraising. Now, I know those
(01:32):
texts are very, very annoying because what it usually is
is people prospecting, buying names and phone numbers and email
addresses from other people's lists, and sending fundraising messages out
Now with somebody who has a decent sized house file,
that's the file that you own of all them people
who go donated to you. I don't give my house
file to anybody, so I don't do that prospecting element.
(01:55):
But it will hurt other people who do because I
am the exception and not the rule. Right, that will
be resulting in They're estimating five hundred million dollars of
lost revenue for Republican campaigns in one in a first
year loan thing. Five hundred million is how that's that's
(02:16):
grassroots money. That's retirees. That's middle class people, that's upper
middle class people. But that is the money that is
the lifeblood that conservatives and populace use to push back
against establishment figures, against the George Soros's, the Taylor swifts,
the billionaires, the tech for oligarch, the Wall Street money
that is what Republican campaigns need to be competitive comes
(02:40):
from small dollar donations that that we're going to see
that shrink substantially, as we did with email when Google
changed the way that you receive email, increasing the number
of campaign emails you were getting into your main box
versus your spam box. There were ways that campaigns worked
(03:02):
it so that way to prove I guess the authenticity
that they're not trying to scam you, they're not trying
to take your Social Security number. And fundraising emails still
manage to get your inbox, not all the time, and
fundraise email as a form of fundraising has decreased substantially,
but it still exists. It's still there. This way, I'm
not getting author like the messages seeing your inbox at all.
(03:27):
This will devastate the fundraising efforts on the part of
Republican campaigns. The NRSC sent an email saying that they
alone will lose about twenty five million dollars. And I've
heard that President Trump has been made aware of this.
It may affect his fund it will not make It
will absolutely affect his fundraising and his packs fundraising. And
this will affect certainly any Republican candidate that is running
(03:50):
for president. Again, the other area of campaign work that
it affects is the get out the vote effort, the
gootp operation, right, because it's their very hard to reach
low propensity voters. There's only so much time of the
day to door knock, there's only so many volunteers anyone has.
Text messaging. Text messaging has become one of the key
(04:11):
ways people reach voters because it's so cheap and they
have such high levels of people opening up the text messages. Right,
It costs about maybe a penny to two pennies per
text message to send out on a campaign. Anyone charging
more than two cents is probably ripping you off, FYI
if anyone's listening to this, but two two and a
half cents perfectly reasonable if you're going to the four
(04:31):
cents ranger being ripped off two and a half pennies though,
is it very very cheap cost to send to tens
of thousands of people to remind them, Hey, election day
is on Tuesday. It's you know, I'm the Canada, I'm
the Republican and the Democrat, the conservative running in this election.
Please vote for me without getting that, you know, having
(04:52):
that avenue to reach voters, even to send them your commercial,
because that's what candids do now too, they send them
their commercial. They're at They'm not just asking for money,
They're saying, this is who I am. Please consider voting
for me. You lose a key way to sit there
and reach voters. Think of it like this. When I
was working for Michael Bloomberg's campaign two thousand and nine,
(05:15):
this is his third term mayoral election. In two thousand
and nine, the rule on the Bloomberg campaign was you
had to touch your voter seven times. That means a
text message, a robocall, a door knocker, a mailer or whatever.
A commercial. They had to see your name seven times
to know who you were and know you were running
for office. Now, the Bloomberg campaign had unlimited funds. He
(05:36):
was funding himself. I mean, we were able to do
whatever he wanted to do. That's not the case for
almost any campaign. There's very type budgets on these campaigns
to reach to vote, to reach voters, it's incredibly hard
and it's not the nineties and two thousands anymore where
you could just buy commercial time on the golden hour
(05:56):
of television, which is the hour between Jeopardy, Wheel of
Fortunate your local news. That's when most of the money
for all local news is being made for the TV
networks is being made and when you can maximalize the
number of people likely to vote in an election with commercials,
I mean those that time that hour does still matter.
But when people increasingly watching YouTube, TV, Hulu, you know,
(06:21):
all these other things rather than watching either basic television
or a cable, your way of reaching voters has to expand.
Because the media market has diversified so much. Texting is
a major part of that, whether we like it or not.
Gutting that means low propensity voters are less likely to
ever hear about a Canada is running. Not everyone gets
(06:44):
the attention that you know a president does. They just don't.
Joe Rogan and Theobiana are not going to do PSA's
every special election, saying Joe Schmoe is running in South
Carolina's fifty third. You see, they rely on cheat methods
kids to get to voters, you know, mailboxes, inboxes, front doors, whatever,
(07:05):
that's just the nature of campaigning. Taking that away really
hurts conservatives more than Democrats, because we're the party of
lower pensity and working class voters. The last part that
I think that people should be aware of the political
industry that will hurt by this substantially is polling. People
don't have landlines anymore. You know, I really want a landline,
(07:27):
you know, me myself, I actually I would love to get
a landline, but I people do not have landlines. They
are relying increasingly on cell phones and especially texting. That
is a key form of how a lot of these
new polling companies are getting a hold of voters is
by texting them and saying would you like to participate
in that survey? It takes a lot of text and
(07:48):
a lot of effort to get respondents and then to
double check them and to figure out, you know, if
they're registered, what party they are, and YadA, YadA, YadA,
and wait the thing, wait the polling answers. All of
that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort,
and it's going to become way harder. All the good
new pulsters that Nail twenty twenty four all use this
(08:09):
as a method to sit there and to get a
hold of people. If that's taken out of the equation,
now polling will be so much more difficult, so much
more expensive, and probably a lot less accurate even than
it is currently, which is a big problem. I know
that these text mentors are annoying. I get it because
I'm annoyed by them. I mean, right the last November,
(08:30):
I was ready to throw my phone and said, well
I get it. I one hundred and ten percent get it.
But that is the way Americans communicate now. That is
the way to reach people. And when you were sitting
there and you were saying, I don't want them to
reach me in this way, guess who wings People who
control the airwaves, who dominate stuff in all the traditional methods,
(08:55):
in all the traditional ways, right, People who people who
are intel television all the time, the establishment news media's narratives.
People who can get on big podcasts and big television
shows and get those exclusives. Not many candidates can, not
every candidate can. I think it's worth remembering that. So
(09:18):
I know that the NRSCS word, I know the rnc's word.
I know the President Trump's team has heard about it
and they are concerned. Let's see if Apple goes through
with it or kind of changes it a little bit
to make sure that some people can get some messages across,
or even if it was an opt in feature that
you had to opt in that all the messages come through,
because let's say you don't want to have to, you know,
(09:38):
not get your uber notification of your ubers on its
way or whatever. I'm sure that they people would choose
not to opt in, not everybody. Some some would choose that,
but not everyone would choose never to opt in. So
we'll see the other thing that's gonna it's my pet
peeve that I want to talk about. I know I
sound very annoyed. I'm not really annoyed. It's just this
is a pet peep is that when I do the podcast,
(10:00):
the Monday Show, I have to tape it on Thursday
or Friday. Well, polling sometimes comes up over the weekend
and I miss it for the Monday Show and I
like to present you guys with all the information I
possibly can and That's what happened this weekend. The Wall
Street Journal had a poll by Fabreezi Elite. Now, for
those of you who are super student to politics, you've
heard the name for Breeza before. That is a band
(10:20):
named Tony Fabrizio. He is a polling legend. He has
been around for decades. He worked for Pappy Cannon and
Bob Dolean, Ram Paul and David Prividu and you know
you name him, He's worked for them, and he is
most notably President Trump's polster. I think that part of
the reason that President Trump's team is so confident in
(10:41):
this last election is that his polling, which was dead on,
said no, you're going to win. I think they were
concerned with a popular vote, but they were like, no,
the path of the lictoral college is very very clear.
I met Tony Fabrizio joined the JD. Vans campaign, and
I always been a big fan of his work. But
him as a person, he is, you know, or Italian
like me from Queens, New York, a total paison and
(11:04):
it was like meeting somebody you always known, like we've
known each other forever. And he's a great guy. He's
a lot of fun, but he's also super bright at polling. Okay,
so Fabrizio Lee's poll is different than most of the
narratives you've seen from a lot of other polsters like Gallup.
First of all, Democrats are ahead in the generic ballot
(11:25):
in the twenty twenty sixth election by three points. They
leave forty six to forty three. Now, that is a
good number for Democrats. That's enough to win the House
majority for sure, but that is not where they were
in twenty eighteen. Now. In twenty eighteen at this time,
Democrats le Republicans between six and fourteen points in the
(11:45):
generic ballot in most polling. So three is enough to
win the five seats needed eight seats whatever, It is
not enough to win thirty fifty sixty seats. It's not
going to be the wave election as of right now
that Democrats had in the past. And part of that
is that the Democratic brand is so far in the dirt.
(12:06):
Democrats have a negative thirty point rating right now. Republicans
have negative eleven. I mean something Iver said there and
we're dancing about, but negative thirty points is horrific. It's
the worst I have ever It's the worst not only
I've ive ever seen it's the worst ever taken by
Tony Fabrizio and at the Thriezo Leepole that is absolute
(12:27):
gutto trash and basically all you are is just the
default non presidential ticket, and that's why they're going to
support you if you're going to win this election. Now,
for President Trump, his ratings were not that bad. He
had a forty six percent approval rating fifty two percent
disapproval rating. For President Trump, that's pretty good. Forty six
(12:48):
to fifty two is pretty good for him historically, definitely
better than his first term. His strongest issue remains immigration,
especially when it comes to the border, and he's done
a phenomenal job, so that's easily understandable. Economy and inflation, though,
is where voters are continued to worry. Now they've gotten
a little bit more optimistic since all the conversations of
(13:10):
recession and depression have kind of subsided, but on the
issues of inflation and tariffs, they remain worried. And I
think part of it is that they are worried obviously
that the arriffs are going to increase costs to them.
But we are still dealing with the aftermath of Biden inflation,
where inflation was outpacing wages, not for everything. I mean,
(13:33):
prices for eggs have come down and gas have come down,
but the overall average has not come down to like
twenty nineteen levels where when he was president last time.
It's going to take several years of wages outpacing inflation
to get to the power, to getting into a purchasing
power that voters feel comfortable with. And until that happens,
(13:56):
they're going to blame who's ever in office for doing it.
So right now President Trump is earning a lot of
that blame. It's just the way the politics works. I
think that the other I think it's a breath of
fresh air for President Trump, though being down negative six
is not terrible. If things pick up. Though, if things
get better, it's going to be in a place where
(14:19):
maybe Republicans and Democrats go into this election in a
tide place. And in that case, I think, especially with
people redistricting in states redistricting, the House, becomes a question
of whether Democrats win it or not. The Senate, there's
really no path for the Democrats to win in this
election cycle. It becomes it's almost impossible right now, it
becomes virtually impossible in a situation where Democrats are only
(14:43):
my three points or are tied. Let's start with Democrats
and their poll. Recently, a Data for Progress poll asked
New York City Democrats of their favorable unfavorable opinion of
several prominent Democratic leaders, and guess who is the most popular.
It's not the Obama's or the Clintons, or the Bidens
or Kamala Harris. The most popular Democrat too Democrat voters
(15:05):
in New York City is Bernie Sanders. He has a
plus sixty two point favorability rating. AOC is right behind
him with sixty points. Zoram Mandani has plus forty two points.
Mandani is more popular than Governor Kathy Hogel, Minority Leader
Hakim Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, or Andrew Cuomo. Nearly
(15:29):
half of Democrat voters in New York City said they
are swayed by Mandanni because he's a fierce critic of
Israel and sixty two percent of Democrats who want federal
government to reduce their support of Israel. Sixty six percent
of Democrats in New York City so their sympathies lie
with Palestine now with Israel and a majority of Democrats
that they are going to support candidates that favor reducing
(15:50):
foreign aid to Israel. Obviously, Israel isn't the only motivating
factor in this election or any election, but it says
a lot about where the Democrat Cretit Party is moving
and the place that they are, because there's things to
criticize Israel Overly, there's things to criticize every country. Where
you can criticize Mongolia, you can criticize anybody. Right. There
(16:13):
is an element, though, of the criticism towards Israel rooted
in anti yes, anti Zionism, and anti Semitism. But what
I pick up on is the routiness in anti whiteness,
the viewpoint by the far left to view everything as
(16:35):
a fight between the oppressors and the oppressed, and that
is a lot to do with racial identity. So because
the Jews in Israel are perceived to be whiter than
the Palestinians, they are the oppressors and the Palestinians are
the oppressed, and everything is view to that lends capitalism
and America and race relations in America, policing, everything is
(16:59):
viewed with that lens, and the Democratic Party has adopted
that mentality as being far left. And I think that
if you are Hakeem Jeffries or Jack Schumer or Kirsten
Jellibrand or Kathy Hochel, and you're looking at your base
of your party and how they are responding, it's going
to be adapt or watch your political career die. My
(17:20):
guest this week is a super smart data analysis who's
seen the emerging trends in both the Trump Republican Party
and the far left coalitions of the Democratic Party, and
he's going to tell us what he sees. Coming up next.
Stay tuned with me on today's episode is Zachary Dnini.
He is a data analyst and for data scientists from
(17:41):
Yale Polling. Zachary, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
So there were two polls that recently come out. There
was the Fabrizio Leape poll which looked at national trends,
which showed Trump at a decent spot, a negative six
percent overall, but forty six to fifty two, which was
for Trump, it's pretty good. And then there was another
poll from Data for Progress that analyzed and looked at
which Democrats had the highest name appeal from especially new
(18:07):
York City Democrats, which are probably more progressive than the
average Democratic voter, but they're not that strong of an outlier.
I wouldn't say they're probably so the right of Portland,
but to like the leath of let South Carolina. There
was a narrative after the Mendanni primary that Mendanni and
Trump voters were a lot alike, or that there was
(18:29):
some overlap in the vote. Is that anything you noticed
in the data? Is that provable at all? Or is
that just a narrative because there were a lot of
minorities and young people in both coalitions.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, so I think a lot of the people demographically
who have shifted towards Trump from Biden from twenty twenty
to twenty twenty four and who voted for Mom Donnie
are similar in the sense that they are young. Right,
the Trump did as well as a GOP candidate has
done with young voters as we've seen in decades, and
(19:02):
Mom Donnie's win was first and foremost fueled by young voters.
What I would say is so. Nate Cone at the
New York Times did some great voter role analysis from
his poll matching to the voter file. His determination was
that only six percent of voters in the New York
(19:22):
City Democratic mayor primary voted for said they voted for Trump,
and my analysis about a third of those are Orthodox
Jews alone, which Cuoma won by by massive margins over
Mom Donnie. So we're talking about only one in twenty
five voters in that in the Democratic primary election being
Trump voters. Did Mom Donnie do well with those Trump voters?
(19:45):
Maybe he did. He did well in you know, Asian
and Hispanic areas that are registered DEM and shifted towards
Trump in twenty twenty four, but there aren't that many
of them, So if he did well, it was at
a small scale and it didn't contribute that much to
his overall victory.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
When you look at the Trump's margins and how the
Republican Party under him has changed, he presented I think
a graph of like what regions had shifted to the
right left, and there was immense right wing shift in
like southern California and New York City. How and tons
of like blue specs in suburban and even rural areas,
(20:24):
especially outside of Atlanta, for example. How how does the
GOP coalition look differently than it did in twenty twelve?
Is it just would have happened no matter what, because
you know it has changed among other right wing parties
in Europe. Let's say, whatever, is it inevitable or is
(20:45):
it really a Trump thing? How does it look different?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
So, first of all, I think Trump definitely has a
unique appeal, especially from a turnout standpoint, to work in
class Republican base voters. The Republican base lapped the Democratic
base twenty twenty four. You know, if Trump was on
the ballot again in twenty twenty eight, I think would
be the same way. With Trump off the ballot, who
knows it depends, it will be a new dynamic. But
(21:11):
that being said, I do think there's a little bit
of inevitability here in this sense. So Hispanic voters shifted
from sixty five percent Biden to fifty four percent Harris
according to my estimates, that's a huge shift. And that
shift was concentrated with people who self identify as either
moderate or conservative. And like a lot of people say, oh,
(21:33):
you know, Hispanic and black voters, they're getting way more
conservative recently, high and I say, well, they're getting way
more Republican. But the self idea, ideology stuff is not
changing that much. So For example, this is CCCS cooperative
election study data from Harvard. Forty five percent of black
(21:54):
people who I self identify as moderate who are eighteen
to twenty nine won those the young black moderates by
forty five points. Harris won black moderates who are sixty
five years or older by ninety three points. So what
we're seeing is a lot of people who voted for
Biden are moderate or conservative, are people of color. And
(22:17):
then flip the Trump and then we're also seeing generational
churn where young, moderate and conservative non white voters are
more open to voting for the Republican Party than their
elders who are literally dying off. Because we get the
generational churn every election.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Right right, And that I think is you know, a
while ago, I would say maybe the twenty sixteen. Every
time working in Republican politics, you'd always hear what we're
going to focus on. We're going to focus on the
black voter. And back in twenty twelve, you probably were
like a kid. There was this big who has this
big emphasis on trying to push a gay marriage initiative
(22:57):
in North Carolina because an anti game marriage in a
ship of North Carolina. Because they were going to turn
the black vote out, and the Black vote is against
game marriage, and they'll vote against the Democrats. And I
believe it was twenty twelve, I'm pretty sure I was,
and it they voted against gay marriage, and then they
voted for Barack Obama. And I said to people, you
are going to have to wait for a generational change
(23:18):
and to even make the smallest impact, because there's just
no way I guess that general change has just happened.
When I'm going to break down the vote by three ways,
the Asian vote's too hard to sit there and try
to I forget because it's not that many of them.
But if you look at first of all, the black vote,
is there any area of the country that it really
(23:40):
didn't move like that there was a thing that changed so.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Throughout the entire country, my estimates have going from eighty
six percent Biden, sorry, eighty nine percent Biden to eighty
six percent Harris. That's definitely a slight change. That's roughly
by as much as that the country change as a whole.
So it's not even that black voters shifted more than
the country. And right now it appears that black voters
(24:06):
in northern Inner cities, and I use the term inner
city to specifically note these are the black voters who
live in precincts with the highest poverty rates and and
you know, bottom tenth income in the country. And then
and then the South, those those black voters moved a
little bit less. Black voters that lived in the suburbs
(24:29):
or in less black areas trended more to the right
towards Trump. For instance. I think you know, there's actually
a lot of state by state variation in the black vote.
I have Harris still winning ninety four percent of the
black vote in Maryland in twenty twenty four, versus only
eighty six in the countries.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
All so you're saying, wait, so you're saying the less
the more that they lived in mixed race communities, they
were more likely to vote. Yes, that's interesting because you
said that that's the opposite of white voters white voters communities.
Is it, and I'm not trying to put words with
is it? Is it that people assume the political identity
(25:08):
of their neighbors more often?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, I think you know. I'm not a sociologist, but
what I can say is, I think most analysts agree that,
you know, to put it in a sentence. Black voters
are moving away from the Democratic Party because local institutions
are breaking down, such as like the Black Church, and
there's social media. So if I'm a black Conservative, I'm
more exposed to other black conservatives, and you know, that
will facilitate, you know, the growth of more black conservatives
(25:33):
because in the long term, it's unlikely a group stays
ninety five to five as we're just becoming such a
you know, connected country.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
And now education is a not a bigger political indicator
than races, but it is exactly as profound. Well among
the white vote, you marketing very interesting. You said the
only places that there was a sizeable ship to the
laft among white voters were places like Alaska, north of
carob New Mexico, rather Georgia and the areas around Washington, DC.
(26:05):
And you said the only linkage to keeping what some
white voters Democrat was federal job federal employees. Is that right?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah? I think so there were there were two groups
of white voters who who shifted left. So one is
just Anglo Saxon, upper middle class suburban voters. So think
about the suburbs of Milwaukee, the suburbs of Columbus. These
voters that were up in upper middle class suburbs in
the northeast, who where Irish, Italian, even Jewish, shifted towards
(26:35):
Trump pretty substantially.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
But even Maschusett Yeah, yeah, exactly, Communists again, it's wing, Yeah,
traditionally progress they had a substantial seven point I think
swing towards Trump.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, exactly. I think you get a lot of in
western mass you get those old mining areas. One of
my favorite, like very specific anecdotes from the twenty twenty
four election is there's this town in Montana called Butte,
which is in Irish mining town. So it's in the
middle of the country where there are very few Irish,
Italian Portuguese people. You get this one Irish mining town
(27:08):
that is the biggest trend to the right out of
any you know, similarly sized town in Montana. Sorry, but
to get back to the original point, Yeah, we have
the Anglo Saxon suburban nights around you know, Columbus, Indianapolis, Milwaukee,
but that's not that many people, right, It's a pretty
narrow band of suburbs and excerpts. When we're talking about
the country as a whole, and then you have federal
employees New Mexico, Alaska, and Northern Virginia. And I think
(27:32):
for this November, for people interested in Virginia politics, it's
pretty notable, you know, with with dojan and government cuts.
That's probably one reason span Burger seems to be in
such a strong position right now.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, I think what was I think twenty five thousand
federal jobs have been cut. I might be wrong in
the action number, but it's in the ends of persons,
all right. Then I guess the last point, and the
key point would be the Latino vogue, because that's the
one that everyone would whispering it could happen, It could
happen than it did happen. Were there?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (28:05):
The same with black voters, is that they're not becoming
more conservative, they're just becoming more Republican.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, I think there's evidence Latino voters are becoming a
little bit more conservative. So I don't want to attribute
it to one hundred percent, you know, moderate and conservative
voters voting for Trump more controlling for the identity. But yeah,
another good fact is so, yeah, eighteen to forty four
Hispanic moderates where Harris plus twenty two forty five plus
(28:33):
Hispanic moderates where Harris plus forty two, Right, you get
this twenty point gap just with the with the two
different generations. And specifically there's the young men, young Latino men,
even you know, young black men, young Asian men. The
David Shore from Blue Rovers Research estimates that Trump won
(28:54):
the majority of non white eighteen year old men in
the country, which is a pretty crazy stat if you
would have heard it eight to twelve years ago. So yeah,
you're again just getting young. Young Hispanic men are significantly
more conservative than older Hispanic men. But yeah, even controlling
for that, you know, young Hispanics feel more open to
(29:16):
vote for Trump and vote for Republicans, uh than Yeah,
they're they're older, modern counterparts. And I would I don't
comment on whether you know things are good or bad
normatively a lot as a you know, nonpartisan analyst, but
I think the vast majority of America would agree that
ideological polarization is good. It's you know, it's good to
(29:36):
live in a country where conservatives want to vote for
the conservative party, liberals want to vote for the generally
liberal party. Right, So so this is this is kind
of like nice to see in a way that ideology
is just becoming very predictive with both choices.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
What I find very interesting about the Latino change, even
more than the Black change, is that in areas of
the country where there was really no Trump campaign, Like
Trump wasn't campaigning in Chicago or Los Angeles. He made
one rally event at the Bronx, but he wasn't campaigning
in the Bronx. There was no like door knockers or
(30:10):
what or commercials being run. That's where you saw the
most significant shift because the change was all organic looking.
And I know you don't have a crystal balls. I'm
not saying you are. Do these kinds of changes though,
look predictive that they are continuing or is it a
Trump thing or is it a thing? Like is it
just what's moving?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, it's so hard to know. One one piece of
evidence that makes me think it's not a Trump thing,
but this will stick would be looking at other elections,
like you know, for instance, Canada in the UK, where
non white voters are also trending, you know, towards the
Conservative Party in that country. You saw it in a
(30:52):
lot of like the Asian Canadian suburbs. So you know,
we like to think we're you know, special at America.
I spend ninety eight percent of my time analyzing American politics.
But the kind of two big trends of twenty twenty
four were young men broke really hard for the Republican
Party and Hispanics and Asians, non white voters broke really
hard for the Republican Party. You see that former trend
(31:14):
young men breaking hard in South Korea, Germany, UK. You
see the latter trend in you know, diversified Western elections
recently like UK, Canada, and US all the same. So
that makes me think it will stick some. But then
I guess quickly the counter argument would be, you know,
in twenty twenty four, Democrats did better down ballot with
Asian and Hispanic voters, and they did at the top
(31:36):
of the ballot, so that that would that would be
the count of right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I was thinking of that. I mean, like Ted Cruise
did worse in the Mexico Texas border than Trump did,
but he did better than he did six years prior. Yeah, yeah,
so maybe, yeah, I don't know, I go back and
forth than that. So let's look at the progressive vote
for a second. How And I guess New York City
(32:00):
is not a perfect microcosm of the Democratic Party, but
is what we have right now? Yeah, I guess you
could look at the New Jersey governor's race too, because
it is a good microcosm as well. What are you?
What are we seeing? As far as how the Democrats
are transforming, There's obviously a bigger appeal amongst seniors. As
(32:21):
I always sell, People always ask me, like, why are
seniors going so far left? I say, because the seniors
in your head that you're thinking of, where seniors are
probably dead by now. This is a very old reference,
but I don't know if you'll know, like the all
in the family reference of like Archie Bunker is dead now,
but Meadhead is a senior citizen. Like that kind of transformation,
generational transformation happened. So like Henry Fond is dead, but
(32:44):
Jane Fond is a senior. So the progressive activists of
the sixties are seventy five. The The interesting thing about
that group of like older maybe progressive people being such
a comminant part of the Democratic Party and them losing
so many working class voters is that what's partially fueling
(33:09):
the far left movement is the ones who are left.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Over exactly exactly, going back to the first thing we
talked about here with how Momdani did well in majority
Asian and Hispanic areas that shifted to Trump. Yet you know,
New York Times Nate Cone has only five percent of
the turnout actually being Trump voters. What you're getting is
the base of voters that anchors Democrats in kind of
(33:34):
like moderate center left neoliberal candidates. Is usually has historically
been conservative Asian, Hispanic and Black voters and moderate Asian
Hispanic and Black voters who still vote in Democratic primaries,
and the moderate block voters are still there right all
in all, in twenty twenty four, they stuck around well,
especially in cities in New York where you're getting more
and more Asian and Hispanic vote versus Black vote. The
(33:58):
moderate and conservative Asian and Hispanics left the party in
twenty four basically probably for good, right, because I don't
think anyone thinks that it's a sustainable strategy for Democrats
to win sixty percent of self id and conservative Hispanics
in the future, and.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
That happened in sixteen, and yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Maybe maybe not sixty percent.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
I would have a reference point though, like, oh, this
this was how long ago that they were winning.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Sixty exactly, and yeah, probably wasn't quite sixty, but you know,
it was getting around there. And yeah, so now that
those voters are gone, they're not anchoring the party anymore,
and like the Democrats are kind of stuck between a
rock and a hard place. This there's this Wall Street
Journal poll that had Democrats at thirty three percent favorable,
(34:47):
Democratic parties thirty three percent favorable, which got a lot
of press. The part of that poll I thought was
even more interesting is that sixty percent of Americans say
Democrats have moved too far left. Which, you know, if
you're trying to get fifty percent of the vote for Democrats,
you need to convince one in six people who think
Democrats have moved too far left to vote for you.
(35:08):
On the other side, you have you know, democrats or
i should say progressives who have proven they're not afraid
to not vote for the presidential candidate. About My estimate
is one in two hundred voters would have voted for
Harris and Democrats but didn't because of Gaza. That's like,
you know, that's a Senate seat in Pennsylvania that's halfway
(35:29):
to the tipping point of the House.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
You know, it's like, that's not what is that as
a percentage point five point five percent percentage? Okay, yeah,
half a percent? Yeah, so that was failing. Frantic people
like that.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yeah, but I should do it to half a percent.
So I get that from polling and then kind of
you know, if you do some rough assumptions with the
New York City mayor race, you can get about that
one percent of people didn't vote for Harris in twenty
twenty four and then voted for Momdani in the primary,
(36:08):
which you know, as we said, we assume New York
City would be overrepresented there. But either way you're you're getting. Yeah,
you're getting the you know, sixty percent of people think
Democrats have moved too far left, and then you're getting
the current energy and success and turnout in the Democratic
Party being on the last wanting to pull the party.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
As the Democrats become increasingly more progressive and Republicans become
like this mishmash of working class voters. Where do moderates
find themselves?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah, some gallup pulling recently is that thirty seven percent
of the country's moderate, thirty six percent conservative, twenty five
percent liberal right. So you get the thirty six conservative
twenty five liberal. It's been pretty consistent over the past
couple decades. This because Democrats aren't winning conservative minorities anymore.
They need to win the lines share of moderates or
(37:01):
they need an extreme dominating turnout advantage from their base. Right,
there's basically two options. Third option is that maybe you
could argue a you know, left wing candidate like AOC
could also do really well with working class moderate you know,
Hispanics and Asian people. But overall, Democrats are going to
have to be winning the majority of moderates at a minimum,
(37:22):
ideally more like sixty to seventy percent for them. So
I think what that means is Democrats are going to
be you know, taking losses if they if they don't
win moderates. Right, the median voter theorem a view of politics,
is backed a lot. I think there's some good split
ticket data from Lukshaia Jann twenty twenty four about how
(37:44):
moderate Democratic House candidates ran better. There's always you know,
a fight in the party between the kind of moderate
popularist wing and the you know, progressive wing, And the
reality is that there's just more evidence recently that the
moderate populist wing to win elections. The exception to that
(38:05):
is in maybe lower turnout elections like you know, mid
terms or off cycle elections, that that turnout edge can
get really dominating for Democrats, and many progressive Democrats would
say that their candidates can incite that enthusiasm and get
that turnout edge for them.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
So is is an AOC or an AOC style candidate
being the Democratic nomine eventually inevitable? Though with that kind
of equation in the.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Mix, I think it's it's getting close to to inevitable
in the sense that the all of the excitement and
enthusiasm and the Democratic Party right now is you know,
from the left and from that wing of the party.
I also think just in the near future for twenty
twenty eight, there will be a lot of different candidates
fighting over the you know, moderate wing. There could just
(38:52):
be one candidate AOC who immediately gets you know, the
progressive lane to herself, which is which is always an
advantage to coalesce sooner in a primary. How effective that
general election campaign will be, I have no idea. I
think it's completely feasible that AOC could do better with
you know, Hispanic moderates because a lot of people's ideology
(39:14):
isn't as strict as you know. I like to think
about it, you know, like here's a line and on
one side super conservative, one side super liberal. Some people
vote based on vibes and stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
That true? All right, Zachi? Where can people go to
read more of your analysis? I think your stuff so
interesting and worth looking at.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
You can find me on Twitter at Zachary Danini, d
O N and I and I and then I also
have a substack at Zacharydanini dot com. I write on
a little less, but if I have even more thoughts
than usual and I can't put all of them onto
my Twitter, you know you'll get some articles.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Well, Zachary, thank you for being this podcast. I really
appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
You're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodowsky.
We'll be right back after this message. Now it's time
for the Ask Me Anything segment of the show. If
you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything,
email me Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot com. That's
ryanat Numbers Game podcast dot com. I read all your emails.
I really appreciate them. I'm not just saying that, Like,
(40:17):
I really do love getting these emails in the ad.
I think an important part to the show, so please
email me. The first one comes from Peter FuMO. He writes, Ryan,
my wife and I have a share a timeshare every
odds summer in Vermont. Two years ago I saw BLM scigns.
This year I actually saw Trump signs. I know it's anecdotal,
but is there any movement from to the right in
(40:39):
very blue Vermont? Vermont? Peter, Great, Sorry, Peter, great question.
I'm going to edit that out. I mean whatever, Peter,
great question about Vermont. I also love Vermont. I vacation
Vermont every single year. I go to Woodstock, I go
to mom Pelly. I love Vermont. It's an amazing state. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
So highly recommend any going there. If they have not,
(41:03):
here's them at Vermont. There was a shift to the
right from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four. Trump gained
about a point and a half a little more than
a point and a half, one point six percent, while
Kama lost about the same thing, maybe two and a
half points. I guess the number went to independence and
he did flip a county. He flipped, one of the
northern counties of Vermont that borders Canada. That being said,
(41:24):
he only got thirty two percent of the vote, though
he got one hundred and nineteen thousand votes overall, I
think like six five hundred voters shifted to Trump. That's
not that many, right. It was a shift, wasn't a
big ship. It was lower than the shift nationwide. So
now you're not seeing a shift towards Trump. You may
have seen more vocal Trump supporters, and I've seen Trump
(41:45):
flags in Vermont, but that's not what you're seeing really there.
The shift in Vermont towards Republicans, though, did happen because
of Governor Phil Scott. Now, Governor Phil Scott is a
liberal Republican, there's no doubting that, But unlike so many
other Republicans governors of blue states, he actually campaigned for
Republicans running down ballot. First, he flipped the lieutenant governor's
(42:09):
race was his seat. Rather in Vermont, like in a
few other states, the lieutenant governor and governor runs separately
from each other, So he flipped the lieutenant governor seat.
John Rogers is now the new Republican Lieutenant governor. He's
the first Republican lieutenant governor that had a Republican governor
since twenty ten, so that's a big deal. But he
campaigned down ballot and he broke the Republicans, sorry, the
(42:31):
Democrats supermajority in the state Senate. Democrats went from having
twenty two seats to having sixteen and Republicans were from
having thirteen sorry, from seven to thirteen. So he gained
six Senate seats for Republicans, almost winning the majority, only
was down by three seats. And in the state legislature,
he gained nineteen Republican State House seats. Vermont has a
(42:53):
ton of state House seats for such a small state,
but so nineteen state House seats, six state Senate seats,
and a statewide elected office, that being a lieutenant governor's seat.
So Phil Scott did make the state go right and
Republicans have more of a footprint there than they've had
in a very very long time. So if you're seeing
anything any trends in Vermont, it's Phil Scott voters. It's
(43:13):
not really President Trump voters, but anyway, that's it Levermont.
Next question comes from Austin Bull. He says Hey, Ryan,
big fan of your podcast and enjoy geeking out over
the numbers. You do a great job of cutting through
the numbers and helping a regular guy like myself understand
the bigger picture. My question is on popular governors choosing
to run or not run for Senate seats. It seems
Democrats to do a much better job again their guys
(43:35):
to run Hick and Looper or Cooper, et cetera. Republicans
continually miss out in recruitments camp jucy SONUNU now that
the biggest fan of Larry Hogan, but at least he
got into the fight and tried in Maryland. Do you
think that they think that he can be president? Or
do damages do a better job of bulling their guys
to run. Also, curious everything young kin is saving for
a twenty eight run or he might be luck in
(43:58):
the Senate seat in twenty twenty, I guess twenty thirty,
or run for governor again in twenty nine. Love to
hear your thoughts. Austin. Okay, So, Austin, great question. I
think that it's a mixed back right. Larry Hogan definitely
bit the bullet. He knew he was gonna have a
tough time running, and I respect Larry Hogan. Larry Hogan
(44:20):
was a Republican governor of a Democratic state who made
the Supreme Court of that state Republican, unlike Charlie Baker,
who appointed Democrats the Massachusetts Supreme Court. He campaigned for
fair districting maps or Republicans could at least fight for
a second Republican House seat in the US House Representatives.
He campaigned for Republicans down ballot, and in twenty eighteen,
(44:43):
Republicans on one I think marilynd was the only state
Republicans gained seats in the state Senate for in a
very tough Republican year. I think that speaks of Larry
Hogan's character as a party man. Larry Hogan was not
about Larry Hogan. Larry Hogan about the party. So often
when you see these Republicans in these blue states, like
(45:06):
a Chris Christie type and Arnold Schwarzenegger type, they are
about themselves, about promoting their brand right as that who
they are. They are these great unifiers that can win
these very tough seeds to build a national profile. They're
not really party people, which is you know, upsetting, and
they should they should be Party people. I think that
(45:28):
it's a question of which person you're talking about. Like
I have heard, and this is all alleged, but I
have heard that Brian Kemp is absolutely running for president
in twenty twenty eight, that he has this eye set
on the prize and that he thinks that he can win.
The Christ i've heard, is in the same exact boat
that he thinks that he can be president. Now, remember
(45:49):
Son New's father Christ and his father John sudo was
the chief of staff for President George Herbert Walker Bush.
And the New family is one of these political dynasties
in New Hampshire that kind of have always assumed that
one day one of them will be president. So I
think that that is definitely in their eyes right now.
(46:11):
I don't know why Jucy didn't run, and I've heard
that Youngen is exploring his options, that he was interested
in running for Senate at one point, he's interested in
running for president the other point, I don't know, but
I'm running for God. I don't think he's uner for
governor in twenty nine because I've heard other Republicans have
been waiting to run for governor in twenty nine, So
I don't think he's gonna make that choice yet, but
I think that I think Youngkin's political career is not
(46:35):
over and I wouldn't be surprised if he either ran
for the Senate or run for president, because I think
that he's exploring both. I think that it's just a
question of when and where, how, when and who. So
that's my little inside of that. Thank you though for
this question, love getting them. I will be back again
on Monday, so please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app,
(46:56):
Apple Podcasts wherever you gets your podcast to make sure
you don't miss an episode. It means a lot to
me and it helps promote this podcast. So thank you
guys again. I'll speak to you on Monday.
Host
Gill Alexander
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