September 1, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode, Ryan discusses the implications of special elections on political trends, and the current political turmoil in France. He also addresses listener questions about gun crime statistics, the impact of illegal aliens on driving laws, and the benefits of political party registration. 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 (00:03):
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Grodowski. Thank
you guys for being here. Happy Labor Day. I hope
you're all relaxing on this holiday. Everyone is off a
side from me because there's no rest for the wicked. Well,
for those who subscribe to my newsletter, you may have
noticed I didn't send it out this week on Sunday
like I usually do because I was sick with COVID.
(00:27):
I contracted COVID last week when probably last Monday, I
think I contracted. I think I know exactly where I was,
and apparently COVID still exists, and it knocked me on
my rear end for the better part of a week.
I'm on the men. I'm feeling much better. I sound
much better. I had to quarantine for a few days,
cancel all my plans. I didn't. I really didn't work
(00:50):
for like three days, which is very rare for me.
I just I couldn't focus on anything. Fever, every you
name it, I had it, and I just watched documentaries
from like the sixties, in seventies and eighties, like every
kind of depressing documentary. The Holocaust aids Homelessness, Elvis's manager
stealing all his money. I was in a dark place,
so I just jumped right in and I saw watch
(01:14):
Daisy Jones and the Six by the Way on Amazon.
Highly recommend it. It's about a seventies rock band, very
loosely inspired by Fleewood Mac. But it was really really
good anyway. So since I was down and out most
of last week, I wanted to be a bit easier
with the podcast episode this week. Give you some important numbers,
both domestically and abroad, and then do an extra long
(01:37):
ask me anything. So first the numbers. Domestically, they are
on special elections. You may have seen a news clipping
last week that Republicans lost the super majority in the
Iowa State Senate. That was after three consecutive double digit losses,
sorry losses in three consecutive double digit Trump seats, so
seats that Trump won by more than ten points the
(02:01):
Republicans had lost after winning them originally in twenty twenty four. Now,
special elections, especially when they're isolated, are not good predictors
of the future. When I worked for my first big
campaign back in twenty ten, it was for Congress and
Bob Turner. He was the Republican running in Brooklyn and
Queens against Anthony Wiener. He lost his first election, but
(02:24):
then won the special the following year, and he flipped
a D plus seven seat. It was a big deal.
It was a big flip, right. But the very next
year Obama went on to win reelection. He only lost
two states that he had won before in two thousand
and eight, in North Carolina and Indiana. What the little trend, though,
you saw from Bob Turner's victory was that the Jewish vote,
(02:47):
especially the Orthodox Jewish vote, was turning away from Obama,
especially over Israel. So on their own, they don't tell
you that much information, right, but you have to look
at them collectively. You look at them collectively, you kind
of get history tells us. They have a way of
pointing the direction upcoming elections go. So I got this
(03:10):
data from David near from the website the down Ballad.
He's blocking on Twitter, by the way, just he's a
liberal nutbag, but the data is correct anyway. From twenty
seventeen to twenty eighteen, there were one hundred and nineteen
special elections for mostly state legislative seats across the country.
Those state Senate and state House seats and congressional seats
(03:32):
that have those special elections. Those districts on average voted
ten point six percent more Democratic than they had in
twenty sixteen, ten point six percent to the left of
twenty sixteen. Then the twenty eighteen midterms came out and
Democrats won the popular vote by nine points, so there
was an indicator in the special elections that the way
(03:56):
the general election was going in the midterms. Then during
the twenty nineteen twenty twenty special elections, there were seventy
seven races and they moved considerably to the right compared
to those of the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen special elections.
The twenty nineteen twenty twenty special elections saw that the
districts only moved five points to the left compared to
(04:17):
twenty and sixteen. The twenty twenty vote comes out and
Democrats win the popular vote by three points, So once
again it shows that the Democrats had a momentum, but
not like they did in the twenty eighteen election. In
the twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two special elections,
remember this is when Joe Biden's in office. Now there
are seventy seven special elections, those districts that had special
(04:40):
elections in that time period, they vote four points to
the right of where they voted in twenty twenty. So
Republicans do better in those special elections. The twenty twenty
two midterms comes out, Republicans win the midterms by three points.
Then twenty twenty four happens, and I want to just
I know that's a lot of numbers, and probably your
(05:00):
eyes are glazing over, but this is like the little caveat.
So the special elections in twenty twenty one twenty twenty
two had Republicans winning them, Republicans win them. The terms
in twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four, Democrats won
specials right. They won the special elections by three point
five percent more than the presidential election in twenty twenty
(05:22):
with the caveat that as momentum grew towards the twenty
twenty four election, Republicans started doing better and better and
better and winning more and more elections. But they had
lost so badly in the very beginning around twenty twenty
three that it couldn't mend the entire it couldn't average out.
But as the election grew, new grew near Republicans did
(05:44):
better Democrats did three point five percent, three point five
percent better than they had in twenty twenty. Republicans won
the popular vote by two points. So why did this
break from tradition? Right? Why was this election cycle, this
last election cycles a big deal? And how has the
norms changed? Well? Because Donald Trump changed the coalitions. He
(06:06):
brought people who don't normally vote to come vote. And
what we saw from the David Shore data, had more
people voted in the twenty twenty four election, Trump would
have won by a bigger margin. Republicans have become a
party that is younger, that is more ethnically diverse, that
is less religious, that is less politically tapped. Democrats, on
the other hand, have become an older voting block. They
(06:28):
are more dependent on highly engage while the older voters.
And so you see from this, I mean, but you
could see this anywhere. By the way, this is not
like just data numbers. Go watch MSNBC for any anti Doge,
anti Trump protests over the last six months. Everybody has
(06:48):
got gray hair in those crowds. Everyone going to an
Eric Sleewell rally has got gray hair. There is no
shame for people of a particular age. I mean My
mom has always said aging is a blessing, not a guarantee.
But this is a very specific type of voter that
is so much a part of the Democratic coalition, so
(07:10):
much a big part of the Democratic Party, that they
are dependent on them to fill their town halls, to
fill their rallies, to vote in their special elections. And
because special elections so far this year have not there's
not been that that many, but where they have happened
(07:31):
those districts where those districts have had special elections so
far this year, those districts have voted thirteen points to
the left of where they had voted in twenty twenty four.
That's the biggest leftward shift in at least the last
eight years. That's a huge movement towards Democrats. And is
(07:53):
it because Trump is incredibly unpopular? Trump is Trump is
Trump right? He never had the Obama Bush by and
balanced post election. I think his highest favorability numbers was
fifty one percent. There hasn't been a ton of high
quality polling taken recently, but among the ones that I've
seen that I really trust, in the last month, Trump's
approval ratings probably around forty six percent on favorable's probably
(08:16):
fifty one percent, not awful, it's probably it's definitely on
par with President obama second term. So here's the question
that I'm going to explore. I don't have the answer
for this episode. I'm gonna explore the next few months,
and then I'm trying to read the tea leaves on.
Are we witnessing a case where Republicans are headed towards
(08:37):
a historic blowout loss in this midterm A thirteen point negative,
a thirteen point shift in the specials is very very,
very very bad. Or are we seeing a more permanent
change to the way our elections are happening in the
(08:57):
sense of in the two thousands, in the twenty tens,
Democrats counted on general elections with huge turnout numbers. Republicans
dependent on these special elections. These midterm elections were less
people voted because Trump has changed the coalition, because Democrats
are increasingly the party of baby boomers and hyperly active
(09:23):
baby boomers who watch MSNBC all day. Are we just
witnessing the way that we change politics that special elections
are not going to be as good as an indicator
for the future. I looked up what the generic ballad
looks like Democrats have a two point five percent lead
of Republicans. That's that doesn't say it's a wave because
(09:44):
in twenty ten, in twenty fourteen, in twenty eighteen, the
polls all showed the wave was coming. This doesn't there.
The poll doesn't show there's a wave coming. Voter registration
doesn't show there's a wave coming. Special elections show there's
a wave coming. So I think that that's the question
that I can't answer for you guys right now. But
it's important data to look at on whether or not
(10:08):
Republicans will lose the House and maybe the Senate. I
don't think that they can lose the Senate, but you know, whatever,
things have been stranger. So but if we're going to
have a twenty twenty six blue wave, I think depends
a lot on that and one of the three indicators
I would look at to sit there and say, oh wow,
showing a wave is happening, says blue wave. And that's
(10:31):
special elections because they are voting once again. Special elections
that have happened this year so far have voted thirteen
points to the left of where those districts were in
twenty twenty four. And if your district is having a
special election, please get out and vote. Because Republicans are
not voting in special elections, they're not voting in midterm elections,
they're not voting in local elections. It's a huge track
on the party. This is why, by the way, at
(10:52):
last Deponic did not get her UN job. She did
not get the UN job because trends have turned out
so poinally for Republicans and special elections that Republicans couldn't
afford the idea, the fact that they may hold her
seat in upstate New York. They thought that maybe they'd
actually lose it if they had to go to a
special election. They can't depend on the Republican electorate when
(11:18):
it's not a presidential election. So yeah, that's that is
where that's that's what's also going to change the way
future presidents pick their cabinets. They will not pick them
in any swingy Ish district at all if it means
that they're going to have to hold special elections that
(11:40):
will put will compromise the majorities. And that's something I
don't think it's going away. Okay, enough about special elections.
I'm going to go to one other issue before I
get to ask me anything that about something that's really
important that's happening in Europe that nobody's covering. Stay tuned,
(12:02):
so if you're paying attention to the news from Europe,
you can see that the continent is really dealing with
a lot of turmoil and political instability that's only going
to get worse next week, specifically on the date September eighth,
that's when France's parliament will take a vote of no
confidence on their prime minister. Okay, let me take a
(12:23):
step back to my mostly American audience. I have a
few European listeners, but the most American audience who don't
know French politics. France has a very strong presidency, the
strongest in all of Europe. Right parliament is basically there
to rubber stamp the president's agenda. This is the historical truth,
and the president appoints the prime minister and then the
legislature approves it. When you have the majority, your party
(12:48):
has the majority in the legislature, it's very easy to
get your prime minister approved. Emmanuel mccron, who was first
elected president of France in twenty seventeen, came with a
huge parliament majority representing political centrism in France. He was
a capitalist who supported reforming France's finances, supporting the institutions
(13:09):
of Europe. He was socially progressive for France. The media
was absolutely in love with him, and most importantly, people
hoped he would fill the role that Angola Merkel German
Chancellor Angela Merkel left when she retired, that he could
basically be this unifying political juggernaut within Europe. Macron's popularity
(13:32):
has fallen into Tathers right. It has fallen apart like unbelievably,
especially in the last year. He surprisingly last year called
for snap elections for the parliament, special elections, as I
was just saying, and it resulted in his party losing
the majority. Basically, the parliament, the French Parliament, which has
(13:55):
always had historically one party governing it at any given time,
is base is essentially now a third nationalist right and
right wing parties, a third centrist parties and a third
socialist and far left parties, so there's no real chance
to govern the parliament. It is completely splintered into thirds
(14:17):
and there's no way to form a cohesive government and
trying to tie together people who really hate each other
and want nothing to do with each other. I'll tell
you this perfect example. In France, there's a tradition where
the youngest member of parliament who's elected gets to he
like shakes the hand of every new member as they're
(14:39):
sworn in. It's weird traditionally having France. Anyway, it's nice. Actually,
when you look at it, you're like, oh, this is
this is nice anyway. The youngest member of the French
Parliament is from a from the National Rally, from Marine
le Penz nationalist right wing party, the National Rally other members.
(15:01):
For the first time, I think ever, they refuse to
shake his hand from all the other parties at a
protest that her party, which is the largest party in
the largest single party in the parliament, had his member
as the youngest elected. I mean, it's crazy. They really
hate each other. So with Macran right now, his current
(15:23):
Prime Minister, Francoise Bayroux, he's pushing forward a forty four
billion dollar spending cut, which is highly unpopular the French.
They loved spending a lot of money and retiring early
and all the rest of it. Well, he thought he'd
be able to push this through and he'd be able
to kind of wiggle his way, but actually the members
(15:43):
of the far left and the nationalist right are saying, no,
we're not going along with this, and in fact, not
only are we not going along with this, but we're
going to hold a vote of no confidence against you, which,
unless some miraculous thing happens, he's going to fail. He
will be ousted as the prime minister. On September the eighth.
France is going to go from one of the most
(16:04):
stable political governments in Western Europe since nineteen fifty eight
to the most chaotic because this is the sixth prime
minister under Emmanuel Macron, three in the last two and
a half years. And if AP poll found that sixty
three percent of French edizens want to hold another stap election.
(16:27):
But if that happens, we're going to get basically close
to the same hung parliament we're going to get now,
No one will get a majority. I mean, party numbers
will shift. Macron's party will probably decline even further, and
the far left and the nationalists right are going to
grow in numbers. But France is in dire financial financial shape.
(16:50):
Their budget is crazy because of their generous pension program,
and they don't know what to do. Macron has said
that he's going to tap his current Defense secretary as
the next prime minister if if they hold this no
confident vote, which was going to I don't see how
any prime minister, given the number of members in the
(17:12):
Parliament and how the parliament breaks down, and is going
to vote any different. I just don't. I don't see that.
The big question is will mccron end up resigning because
I mean, he lost six prime ministers, three in two
and a half years. He's going through them every couple
hundred days. This is not a good look people. Right
now he's saying no, he's saying I'm staying until my
(17:34):
term ends in twenty twenty seven, but almost, and he's
saying this is come one. He always wants to protect
his legacy. He doesn't want to be the man who
stepped down. Guess what your legacy looks worse if you
leave with like a seven percent approval rating and someone
you hate, well, he's gonna hate whoever the successor is,
no matter what, because there's no there's no soft landing
(17:56):
right now for France. It will be worse for him though.
If Jordan Bardella, who is of the Nationalist Party, or
if one of the far left leaders becomes the next
president of France in his in his absence after he retires.
I just don't see how he comes out of this
(18:20):
smelling like daisies, and he doesn't want to resign, but
there's literally no safe place for him. Right now, France
is headed towards a giant political crisis, and either Jordan
Bardella and the National Rally and this is the Nationalist
party of the National Rally, or the far Left will
inherit the political throne. Is my prediction of France. Something
(18:42):
is going to happen that will be like never seen
before and France. If France gets a nationalist government, it
will be the largest nationalist right wing government in all
of Europe aside from Italy. And right now, for the
first time ever, I don't think there's been a time
the nationalists right are polling in first place in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy,
(19:09):
the Netherlands, France and England. I think they're still in
second space, their third in Spain, third and portraital I'm
not reading this by the I'm going on my head
of the poles I've seen before. Second in Sweden. So yeah,
first in England, France, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and
Switzerland and the Netherlands. That's never happened before. That is
(19:33):
a fundamental shift. If all those countries had out Georgia Maloney,
you know how different Europe will love you know how
in Bold and Georgia Maloney would be. Anyway, it's fascinating times.
Next week it all happens. We'll see if emnual machron
can survive. Next up is ask Me Anything. Okay, now
(19:54):
it's time for Ask Me Anything. If you want to
be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me
Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot com. That's Ryan at
numbers Game podcast dot com. First question comes from Kevin
from Vermont. He said, I've heard it said, more guns
equal less crime. What do the numbers say? If you
could conclude numbers from other countries around the world, I'd
love to see the numbers line up with what you
(20:16):
see in the US. Kevin, thank you for your question.
So the phrase more guns, crime less crime comes from
John Lott, who's a very smart writer. He wrote a
book with that name in nineteen ninety eight. He's republished
it several times if you would like to get it.
It's more up to date than nineteen ninety eight. But
I actually sent John Lott a DM inviting him to
(20:38):
this podcast to discuss it for a whole episode, because
I think it's actually a really great topic and he's
done so much of the research about this. His stuff
has a lot of detractors, as anyone who makes those
kinds of sentences and claims would have, but he's a very,
very smart guy. When it comes to gun ownership. The
(20:58):
United States is far and away the most you know,
gun happy country in the world. Right. We are first
only behind Yemen, Serbia, Montenegro, Canada, Uruguay, Cyprus, Finland, and Lebanon.
Those are very diverse countries, so it's not helpful to
compare what gun ownership and crime look like in all
(21:20):
those places. I look specifically at America, and when you
talk about crime, and I'm going to go specifically into
gun violence, right and homicide by guns, you hear a
lot of Republican states have the highest amount of homicides,
and Republicans that's what democrats like Avenues say, and then
Republicans say, well, those are democratic cities and democratic mayors,
(21:45):
and they try to boil everything down to partisan politics.
When you examine which states have the lowest level of
gun crime, they are main Hawaii, Rhode Island, New Hampshire,
and Idaho. Three of those five states have concealed carry law. Maine,
New Hampshire, and Idaho all have concealed carry laws. You
can all you can all constitutional carries what they also
(22:08):
call it, they can carry a gun with you at
all times. Idaho is the fourth most heavily armed state
in the entire country too, So there's lots of guns
and very little crime. But I think that the easy association,
and I'm not happy to sit there and say this,
but the easy association is race. I mean, that's a
lot to do with gun crime in this country. Gavin
(22:30):
Newsom likes to sit there and say, oh, it's bred states. Well,
the top five highest states for homicides are Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,
New Mexico, and South Carolina. So I'll put New Mexico
as a side for an outlier, right, But the four
of the five other ones are four or five blackest states.
If the According to the FBI and CDC statistics, the
(22:51):
homicide rate by race is overwhelmingly one sided on all
these other states. In Mississippi, the number of blacks killed
in the state was thirty nine point two per one
hundred thousand. For whites it was four per one hundred thousand.
You are ten times as likely to be murdered in
(23:13):
a gun crime if you are black in Mississippi then
if you are white. Now, I know I have a
few liberal listeners and I love them, and they'll sit
there and say, well, what makes you think that it's
not the white people killing the black people. Well, because
federal statistics and lots of crime statistics, black homicide rate
is ninety four percent intraracial. That means ninety four percent
(23:35):
of the time someone who is also black has killed
a black person, right, nineteen out of twenty times. For
white people, it's also very high, it's eighty six percent
intra racial. It's five out of every six times. Not
as high as the blacks, but it's an overwhelming majority.
Black men in Mississippi between the ages of fifteen to
(23:55):
thirty four are five point four percent of the population
and forty eight percent of all homicide victims in the state.
So when we sit there in site, we have a
gun a crime problem, a homicide problem. You know a
problem with gun crime in our country, Yes, but it
(24:17):
is so overwhelmingly within one very small demographic. How you
fix that problem I don't have an answer to. I
don't have a clear cut answer to. But if you
were to separate the races in how crime is happening
to them, Black Americans, if they were their own country
(24:38):
would be one of the most dangerous countries in the world,
and white Americans would basically be what Canada is. It's
very easily on par it is. It is a complete
racial breakdown, which is why the crime breakdown is difference.
Why you always see like New England States is some
of the safest anyway, all right, I'm not. It doesn't
(24:59):
even pleasure to sit there and say these things. I'm
not sitting there and be like, oh, this is amazing,
this is you know, look at how great white Americans are.
I'm saying that this is tragic, and it's been going
on for a very, very very long time, and hopefully
one day someone figures out a way to crack down
it and stop so much blood shedding. Okay, and by
the way, I'm going to invite John Lott on I
(25:20):
really want them on to talk about specific that gun
ownership and crime and other store swords. All right. Next
question comes from Matt Osborne. He writes about the horrible
incident in Florida where an illegal alien driver from India
killed three Haitian migrants because he was driving a tractor
trailer and he clearly didn't know any of the laws
on the road. He writes, rogue states issuing driver's licenses,
(25:41):
especially commercial driver's licenses, create huge problems for law abiding
parts of our society. What are the numbers data on
illegal aliens with driver's licenses and commercial driver's licenses? Wasn't real?
I d supposed to fix this, okay? So there are
nineteen states that offer driver's licenses to illegal aliens. They
are Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware,
(26:08):
New Jersey, and New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont,
and Hawaii. And Utah is the only state with a
Republican legislator and Republican governor who would overturn that in
a heartbeat. The District of Columbia also gives out driver's
licenses to illegal aliens, as does Puerto Rico, which okay anyway,
So I don't know why Hawaii does. I mean, I
(26:29):
guess they're on an island whatever. So there's no national
data base with a number of illegals with driver's licenses.
This is a data compiled. The data I'm offer New
York is compiled by the National Conference of State Legislators
and the National Immigration Law Center. There are an estimate,
and this is just an estimate because we only really
have data on a few states, so we have to
(26:51):
kind of like average them ount from what other states
are issuing. But there's probably two million illegal aliens with
legal drives licenses on the road throughout the country today.
When it comes to commercial driver's licenses, it's really even
more difficult to figure out the exact number. But the
best estimate that comes is a twenty twenty five over
(27:12):
Driver report that finds approximately sixty thousand non citizens currently
have commercial driver's licenses, which is I mean, like crazy high,
I mean, we anyone can I mean not anyone? Most
people should be able to get a driver's licenses or
has one. So I don't know why p American citizens
(27:33):
who can't find a job, aren't getting those jobs over
non citizens? But whatever, the question of a real ID, yeah,
real ID should have worked. But like so much of
the nine to eleven Commission's findings, that was pushed aside
and implementation was pushed aside because we the Bush administration
was so dead set on going to war in Iraq.
(27:54):
There was a lot in the nine to eleven Commission
that was that came out in two thousand and four
that seems like such common sense to deal with counter
terrorism that was never implemented, like entry eggs of visa systems,
like a border barrier. Yeah, the nine to eleven Commission
called for a fence or wall type situation long before
Trump ever came down, you know, the escalator, but the
(28:16):
Bush administration just flat out ignored it. They had some
dimsy little thing over a few hundred miles. It wasn't
a complete defense. It was a It was a joke,
is what it was. And he did not do the
real idea act. So some of the stuff still hasn't happened, Like,
some of this stuff is still not complete twenty years later,
(28:38):
twenty what is it? Twenty one years later? And twenty
one years after the commission was reported and twenty four
years since nine to eleven, and states have certainly have
a level autonomy and the Republican president and no Republican president,
not even Trump, has put teeth to this issue. If
you wanted the federal government to stop this, all you
(29:00):
would have to do is get the Republican Congress and
Republican Senate or Republican president to sit there and to
deny highway funds to states that offer illegal aliens driver's licenses.
That's all you'd have to do. This is how the
seat belt laws really took off. Seat belt laws. I mean,
(29:20):
there was Moms against drunk driving, that was a big
part of it, but seat belt laws really started popping
up across states back in I think the nineteen seventies
and sixties. I think that's mostly the seventies, but they
really started popping up a lot in the seventies and eighties.
Because there is it is attached to federal highway funds.
That is why only one state, New Hampshire, does not
(29:44):
have seatbelt laws, and that's why they do not get
federal highway funds, or they I guess they get part
of it. They don't get the full amount because they
will not pass the seat belt law. Okay. Last question
comes from Frank. He writes, I live in Westchester County,
New York. I'm a registered as an independent years ago,
but I thought it would cut down on mails and
phone calls from the Republican Party. Is there any benefit
(30:05):
of switching my registration to a Republican other than being
able to vote in primaries? I don't think I've ever
voted for a Democrat except for a local judge where
Conservatives run as Democrats just to win. Is there any benefit? Well,
I think actually as an independent, you're more likely to
get called in a general election, in my opinion, because
(30:26):
it depends on west part of Westchester you're living. If
you're living in a very heavily democratic part of the county,
it is likely that there's probably no Republican primaries to
begin with. The Republican Party just nominate somebody and they
get the party line and then they run. And independents
(30:47):
are really a good group to go to to try
to swing towards them. So I think that you probably
get actually more letters and registration being an independent than
a Republican. I don't know. That's when my opinion is
I'm a Murger Republican. I've I think that being able
to vote in the primaries matters a lot more. And
(31:08):
I don't think you'd be actually inconvenience that much with
mail and other stuff. I think, I really do think
you probably get more as an independent. So yeah, I mean, yes,
you got to vote in primaries. That's the one advantage.
I think you'll actually get less male and that's it.
I mean, there's nothing else really to it, aside from
I guess showing support for the party. Support for it
(31:31):
looks good on when when newsreels come out, they sit
there and say so when so many people join the
republic Party as a one person thing, it doesn't really matter.
When thousands of people do it, it does matter. I
mean that's when people say they should I join, Should
I become a Catholic? I mean I've been a Catholic
my whole life. Yeah, I would say yes, but that's
my own But it's my own bias. So so come
(31:52):
and join the Republican Party. The water is warm. I
don't think there's any specific advantage to it, aside from
voting in primaries. But I do think if you're worried
about the mail and the phone calls. I don't think
that you're gonna I think the only thing that will
happen for you is you'll get petitioners to come to
sign a petition so people get on the ballot. Aside
(32:14):
from that, now it's about the same amount. So thank
you guys for listening to this podcast. Happy labored Day.
I'll be back on Thursday, post COVID feeling much better.
If you like this podcast, please subscribe on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts, and I will
see you guys then
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Grodowski. Thank
you guys for being here. Happy Labor Day. I hope
you're all relaxing on this holiday. Everyone is off a
side from me because there's no rest for the wicked. Well,
for those who subscribe to my newsletter, you may have
noticed I didn't send it out this week on Sunday
like I usually do because I was sick with COVID.
(00:27):
I contracted COVID last week when probably last Monday, I
think I contracted. I think I know exactly where I was,
and apparently COVID still exists, and it knocked me on
my rear end for the better part of a week.
I'm on the men. I'm feeling much better. I sound
much better. I had to quarantine for a few days,
cancel all my plans. I didn't. I really didn't work
(00:50):
for like three days, which is very rare for me.
I just I couldn't focus on anything. Fever, every you
name it, I had it, and I just watched documentaries
from like the sixties, in seventies and eighties, like every
kind of depressing documentary. The Holocaust aids Homelessness, Elvis's manager
stealing all his money. I was in a dark place,
so I just jumped right in and I saw watch
(01:14):
Daisy Jones and the Six by the Way on Amazon.
Highly recommend it. It's about a seventies rock band, very
loosely inspired by Fleewood Mac. But it was really really
good anyway. So since I was down and out most
of last week, I wanted to be a bit easier
with the podcast episode this week. Give you some important numbers,
both domestically and abroad, and then do an extra long
(01:37):
ask me anything. So first the numbers. Domestically, they are
on special elections. You may have seen a news clipping
last week that Republicans lost the super majority in the
Iowa State Senate. That was after three consecutive double digit losses,
sorry losses in three consecutive double digit Trump seats, so
seats that Trump won by more than ten points the
(02:01):
Republicans had lost after winning them originally in twenty twenty four. Now,
special elections, especially when they're isolated, are not good predictors
of the future. When I worked for my first big
campaign back in twenty ten, it was for Congress and
Bob Turner. He was the Republican running in Brooklyn and
Queens against Anthony Wiener. He lost his first election, but
(02:24):
then won the special the following year, and he flipped
a D plus seven seat. It was a big deal.
It was a big flip, right. But the very next
year Obama went on to win reelection. He only lost
two states that he had won before in two thousand
and eight, in North Carolina and Indiana. What the little trend, though,
you saw from Bob Turner's victory was that the Jewish vote,
(02:47):
especially the Orthodox Jewish vote, was turning away from Obama,
especially over Israel. So on their own, they don't tell
you that much information, right, but you have to look
at them collectively. You look at them collectively, you kind
of get history tells us. They have a way of
pointing the direction upcoming elections go. So I got this
(03:10):
data from David near from the website the down Ballad.
He's blocking on Twitter, by the way, just he's a
liberal nutbag, but the data is correct anyway. From twenty
seventeen to twenty eighteen, there were one hundred and nineteen
special elections for mostly state legislative seats across the country.
Those state Senate and state House seats and congressional seats
(03:32):
that have those special elections. Those districts on average voted
ten point six percent more Democratic than they had in
twenty sixteen, ten point six percent to the left of
twenty sixteen. Then the twenty eighteen midterms came out and
Democrats won the popular vote by nine points, so there
was an indicator in the special elections that the way
(03:56):
the general election was going in the midterms. Then during
the twenty nineteen twenty twenty special elections, there were seventy
seven races and they moved considerably to the right compared
to those of the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen special elections.
The twenty nineteen twenty twenty special elections saw that the
districts only moved five points to the left compared to
(04:17):
twenty and sixteen. The twenty twenty vote comes out and
Democrats win the popular vote by three points, So once
again it shows that the Democrats had a momentum, but
not like they did in the twenty eighteen election. In
the twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two special elections,
remember this is when Joe Biden's in office. Now there
are seventy seven special elections, those districts that had special
(04:40):
elections in that time period, they vote four points to
the right of where they voted in twenty twenty. So
Republicans do better in those special elections. The twenty twenty
two midterms comes out, Republicans win the midterms by three points.
Then twenty twenty four happens, and I want to just
I know that's a lot of numbers, and probably your
(05:00):
eyes are glazing over, but this is like the little caveat.
So the special elections in twenty twenty one twenty twenty
two had Republicans winning them, Republicans win them. The terms
in twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four, Democrats won
specials right. They won the special elections by three point
five percent more than the presidential election in twenty twenty
(05:22):
with the caveat that as momentum grew towards the twenty
twenty four election, Republicans started doing better and better and
better and winning more and more elections. But they had
lost so badly in the very beginning around twenty twenty
three that it couldn't mend the entire it couldn't average out.
But as the election grew, new grew near Republicans did
(05:44):
better Democrats did three point five percent, three point five
percent better than they had in twenty twenty. Republicans won
the popular vote by two points. So why did this
break from tradition? Right? Why was this election cycle, this
last election cycles a big deal? And how has the
norms changed? Well? Because Donald Trump changed the coalitions. He
(06:06):
brought people who don't normally vote to come vote. And
what we saw from the David Shore data, had more
people voted in the twenty twenty four election, Trump would
have won by a bigger margin. Republicans have become a
party that is younger, that is more ethnically diverse, that
is less religious, that is less politically tapped. Democrats, on
the other hand, have become an older voting block. They
(06:28):
are more dependent on highly engage while the older voters.
And so you see from this, I mean, but you
could see this anywhere. By the way, this is not
like just data numbers. Go watch MSNBC for any anti Doge,
anti Trump protests over the last six months. Everybody has
(06:48):
got gray hair in those crowds. Everyone going to an
Eric Sleewell rally has got gray hair. There is no
shame for people of a particular age. I mean My
mom has always said aging is a blessing, not a guarantee.
But this is a very specific type of voter that
is so much a part of the Democratic coalition, so
(07:10):
much a big part of the Democratic Party, that they
are dependent on them to fill their town halls, to
fill their rallies, to vote in their special elections. And
because special elections so far this year have not there's
not been that that many, but where they have happened
(07:31):
those districts where those districts have had special elections so
far this year, those districts have voted thirteen points to
the left of where they had voted in twenty twenty four.
That's the biggest leftward shift in at least the last
eight years. That's a huge movement towards Democrats. And is
(07:53):
it because Trump is incredibly unpopular? Trump is Trump is
Trump right? He never had the Obama Bush by and
balanced post election. I think his highest favorability numbers was
fifty one percent. There hasn't been a ton of high
quality polling taken recently, but among the ones that I've
seen that I really trust, in the last month, Trump's
approval ratings probably around forty six percent on favorable's probably
(08:16):
fifty one percent, not awful, it's probably it's definitely on
par with President obama second term. So here's the question
that I'm going to explore. I don't have the answer
for this episode. I'm gonna explore the next few months,
and then I'm trying to read the tea leaves on.
Are we witnessing a case where Republicans are headed towards
(08:37):
a historic blowout loss in this midterm A thirteen point negative,
a thirteen point shift in the specials is very very,
very very bad. Or are we seeing a more permanent
change to the way our elections are happening in the
(08:57):
sense of in the two thousands, in the twenty tens,
Democrats counted on general elections with huge turnout numbers. Republicans
dependent on these special elections. These midterm elections were less
people voted because Trump has changed the coalition, because Democrats
are increasingly the party of baby boomers and hyperly active
(09:23):
baby boomers who watch MSNBC all day. Are we just
witnessing the way that we change politics that special elections
are not going to be as good as an indicator
for the future. I looked up what the generic ballad
looks like Democrats have a two point five percent lead
of Republicans. That's that doesn't say it's a wave because
(09:44):
in twenty ten, in twenty fourteen, in twenty eighteen, the
polls all showed the wave was coming. This doesn't there.
The poll doesn't show there's a wave coming. Voter registration
doesn't show there's a wave coming. Special elections show there's
a wave coming. So I think that that's the question
that I can't answer for you guys right now. But
it's important data to look at on whether or not
(10:08):
Republicans will lose the House and maybe the Senate. I
don't think that they can lose the Senate, but you know, whatever,
things have been stranger. So but if we're going to
have a twenty twenty six blue wave, I think depends
a lot on that and one of the three indicators
I would look at to sit there and say, oh wow,
showing a wave is happening, says blue wave. And that's
(10:31):
special elections because they are voting once again. Special elections
that have happened this year so far have voted thirteen
points to the left of where those districts were in
twenty twenty four. And if your district is having a
special election, please get out and vote. Because Republicans are
not voting in special elections, they're not voting in midterm elections,
they're not voting in local elections. It's a huge track
on the party. This is why, by the way, at
(10:52):
last Deponic did not get her UN job. She did
not get the UN job because trends have turned out
so poinally for Republicans and special elections that Republicans couldn't
afford the idea, the fact that they may hold her
seat in upstate New York. They thought that maybe they'd
actually lose it if they had to go to a
special election. They can't depend on the Republican electorate when
(11:18):
it's not a presidential election. So yeah, that's that is
where that's that's what's also going to change the way
future presidents pick their cabinets. They will not pick them
in any swingy Ish district at all if it means
that they're going to have to hold special elections that
(11:40):
will put will compromise the majorities. And that's something I
don't think it's going away. Okay, enough about special elections.
I'm going to go to one other issue before I
get to ask me anything that about something that's really
important that's happening in Europe that nobody's covering. Stay tuned,
(12:02):
so if you're paying attention to the news from Europe,
you can see that the continent is really dealing with
a lot of turmoil and political instability that's only going
to get worse next week, specifically on the date September eighth,
that's when France's parliament will take a vote of no
confidence on their prime minister. Okay, let me take a
(12:23):
step back to my mostly American audience. I have a
few European listeners, but the most American audience who don't
know French politics. France has a very strong presidency, the
strongest in all of Europe. Right parliament is basically there
to rubber stamp the president's agenda. This is the historical truth,
and the president appoints the prime minister and then the
legislature approves it. When you have the majority, your party
(12:48):
has the majority in the legislature, it's very easy to
get your prime minister approved. Emmanuel mccron, who was first
elected president of France in twenty seventeen, came with a
huge parliament majority representing political centrism in France. He was
a capitalist who supported reforming France's finances, supporting the institutions
(13:09):
of Europe. He was socially progressive for France. The media
was absolutely in love with him, and most importantly, people
hoped he would fill the role that Angola Merkel German
Chancellor Angela Merkel left when she retired, that he could
basically be this unifying political juggernaut within Europe. Macron's popularity
(13:32):
has fallen into Tathers right. It has fallen apart like unbelievably,
especially in the last year. He surprisingly last year called
for snap elections for the parliament, special elections, as I
was just saying, and it resulted in his party losing
the majority. Basically, the parliament, the French Parliament, which has
(13:55):
always had historically one party governing it at any given time,
is base is essentially now a third nationalist right and
right wing parties, a third centrist parties and a third
socialist and far left parties, so there's no real chance
to govern the parliament. It is completely splintered into thirds
(14:17):
and there's no way to form a cohesive government and
trying to tie together people who really hate each other
and want nothing to do with each other. I'll tell
you this perfect example. In France, there's a tradition where
the youngest member of parliament who's elected gets to he
like shakes the hand of every new member as they're
(14:39):
sworn in. It's weird traditionally having France. Anyway, it's nice. Actually,
when you look at it, you're like, oh, this is
this is nice anyway. The youngest member of the French
Parliament is from a from the National Rally, from Marine
le Penz nationalist right wing party, the National Rally other members.
(15:01):
For the first time, I think ever, they refuse to
shake his hand from all the other parties at a
protest that her party, which is the largest party in
the largest single party in the parliament, had his member
as the youngest elected. I mean, it's crazy. They really
hate each other. So with Macran right now, his current
(15:23):
Prime Minister, Francoise Bayroux, he's pushing forward a forty four
billion dollar spending cut, which is highly unpopular the French.
They loved spending a lot of money and retiring early
and all the rest of it. Well, he thought he'd
be able to push this through and he'd be able
to kind of wiggle his way, but actually the members
(15:43):
of the far left and the nationalist right are saying, no,
we're not going along with this, and in fact, not
only are we not going along with this, but we're
going to hold a vote of no confidence against you, which,
unless some miraculous thing happens, he's going to fail. He
will be ousted as the prime minister. On September the eighth.
France is going to go from one of the most
(16:04):
stable political governments in Western Europe since nineteen fifty eight
to the most chaotic because this is the sixth prime
minister under Emmanuel Macron, three in the last two and
a half years. And if AP poll found that sixty
three percent of French edizens want to hold another stap election.
(16:27):
But if that happens, we're going to get basically close
to the same hung parliament we're going to get now,
No one will get a majority. I mean, party numbers
will shift. Macron's party will probably decline even further, and
the far left and the nationalists right are going to
grow in numbers. But France is in dire financial financial shape.
(16:50):
Their budget is crazy because of their generous pension program,
and they don't know what to do. Macron has said
that he's going to tap his current Defense secretary as
the next prime minister if if they hold this no
confident vote, which was going to I don't see how
any prime minister, given the number of members in the
(17:12):
Parliament and how the parliament breaks down, and is going
to vote any different. I just don't. I don't see that.
The big question is will mccron end up resigning because
I mean, he lost six prime ministers, three in two
and a half years. He's going through them every couple
hundred days. This is not a good look people. Right
now he's saying no, he's saying I'm staying until my
(17:34):
term ends in twenty twenty seven, but almost, and he's
saying this is come one. He always wants to protect
his legacy. He doesn't want to be the man who
stepped down. Guess what your legacy looks worse if you
leave with like a seven percent approval rating and someone
you hate, well, he's gonna hate whoever the successor is,
no matter what, because there's no there's no soft landing
(17:56):
right now for France. It will be worse for him though.
If Jordan Bardella, who is of the Nationalist Party, or
if one of the far left leaders becomes the next
president of France in his in his absence after he retires.
I just don't see how he comes out of this
(18:20):
smelling like daisies, and he doesn't want to resign, but
there's literally no safe place for him. Right now, France
is headed towards a giant political crisis, and either Jordan
Bardella and the National Rally and this is the Nationalist
party of the National Rally, or the far Left will
inherit the political throne. Is my prediction of France. Something
(18:42):
is going to happen that will be like never seen
before and France. If France gets a nationalist government, it
will be the largest nationalist right wing government in all
of Europe aside from Italy. And right now, for the
first time ever, I don't think there's been a time
the nationalists right are polling in first place in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy,
(19:09):
the Netherlands, France and England. I think they're still in
second space, their third in Spain, third and portraital I'm
not reading this by the I'm going on my head
of the poles I've seen before. Second in Sweden. So yeah,
first in England, France, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and
Switzerland and the Netherlands. That's never happened before. That is
(19:33):
a fundamental shift. If all those countries had out Georgia Maloney,
you know how different Europe will love you know how
in Bold and Georgia Maloney would be. Anyway, it's fascinating times.
Next week it all happens. We'll see if emnual machron
can survive. Next up is ask Me Anything. Okay, now
(19:54):
it's time for Ask Me Anything. If you want to
be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me
Ryan at Numbers Game podcast dot com. That's Ryan at
numbers Game podcast dot com. First question comes from Kevin
from Vermont. He said, I've heard it said, more guns
equal less crime. What do the numbers say? If you
could conclude numbers from other countries around the world, I'd
love to see the numbers line up with what you
(20:16):
see in the US. Kevin, thank you for your question.
So the phrase more guns, crime less crime comes from
John Lott, who's a very smart writer. He wrote a
book with that name in nineteen ninety eight. He's republished
it several times if you would like to get it.
It's more up to date than nineteen ninety eight. But
I actually sent John Lott a DM inviting him to
(20:38):
this podcast to discuss it for a whole episode, because
I think it's actually a really great topic and he's
done so much of the research about this. His stuff
has a lot of detractors, as anyone who makes those
kinds of sentences and claims would have, but he's a very,
very smart guy. When it comes to gun ownership. The
(20:58):
United States is far and away the most you know,
gun happy country in the world. Right. We are first
only behind Yemen, Serbia, Montenegro, Canada, Uruguay, Cyprus, Finland, and Lebanon.
Those are very diverse countries, so it's not helpful to
compare what gun ownership and crime look like in all
(21:20):
those places. I look specifically at America, and when you
talk about crime, and I'm going to go specifically into
gun violence, right and homicide by guns, you hear a
lot of Republican states have the highest amount of homicides,
and Republicans that's what democrats like Avenues say, and then
Republicans say, well, those are democratic cities and democratic mayors,
(21:45):
and they try to boil everything down to partisan politics.
When you examine which states have the lowest level of
gun crime, they are main Hawaii, Rhode Island, New Hampshire,
and Idaho. Three of those five states have concealed carry law. Maine,
New Hampshire, and Idaho all have concealed carry laws. You
can all you can all constitutional carries what they also
(22:08):
call it, they can carry a gun with you at
all times. Idaho is the fourth most heavily armed state
in the entire country too, So there's lots of guns
and very little crime. But I think that the easy association,
and I'm not happy to sit there and say this,
but the easy association is race. I mean, that's a
lot to do with gun crime in this country. Gavin
(22:30):
Newsom likes to sit there and say, oh, it's bred states. Well,
the top five highest states for homicides are Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,
New Mexico, and South Carolina. So I'll put New Mexico
as a side for an outlier, right, But the four
of the five other ones are four or five blackest states.
If the According to the FBI and CDC statistics, the
(22:51):
homicide rate by race is overwhelmingly one sided on all
these other states. In Mississippi, the number of blacks killed
in the state was thirty nine point two per one
hundred thousand. For whites it was four per one hundred thousand.
You are ten times as likely to be murdered in
(23:13):
a gun crime if you are black in Mississippi then
if you are white. Now, I know I have a
few liberal listeners and I love them, and they'll sit
there and say, well, what makes you think that it's
not the white people killing the black people. Well, because
federal statistics and lots of crime statistics, black homicide rate
is ninety four percent intraracial. That means ninety four percent
(23:35):
of the time someone who is also black has killed
a black person, right, nineteen out of twenty times. For
white people, it's also very high, it's eighty six percent
intra racial. It's five out of every six times. Not
as high as the blacks, but it's an overwhelming majority.
Black men in Mississippi between the ages of fifteen to
(23:55):
thirty four are five point four percent of the population
and forty eight percent of all homicide victims in the state.
So when we sit there in site, we have a
gun a crime problem, a homicide problem. You know a
problem with gun crime in our country, Yes, but it
(24:17):
is so overwhelmingly within one very small demographic. How you
fix that problem I don't have an answer to. I
don't have a clear cut answer to. But if you
were to separate the races in how crime is happening
to them, Black Americans, if they were their own country
(24:38):
would be one of the most dangerous countries in the world,
and white Americans would basically be what Canada is. It's
very easily on par it is. It is a complete
racial breakdown, which is why the crime breakdown is difference.
Why you always see like New England States is some
of the safest anyway, all right, I'm not. It doesn't
(24:59):
even pleasure to sit there and say these things. I'm
not sitting there and be like, oh, this is amazing,
this is you know, look at how great white Americans are.
I'm saying that this is tragic, and it's been going
on for a very, very very long time, and hopefully
one day someone figures out a way to crack down
it and stop so much blood shedding. Okay, and by
the way, I'm going to invite John Lott on I
(25:20):
really want them on to talk about specific that gun
ownership and crime and other store swords. All right. Next
question comes from Matt Osborne. He writes about the horrible
incident in Florida where an illegal alien driver from India
killed three Haitian migrants because he was driving a tractor
trailer and he clearly didn't know any of the laws
on the road. He writes, rogue states issuing driver's licenses,
(25:41):
especially commercial driver's licenses, create huge problems for law abiding
parts of our society. What are the numbers data on
illegal aliens with driver's licenses and commercial driver's licenses? Wasn't real?
I d supposed to fix this, okay? So there are
nineteen states that offer driver's licenses to illegal aliens. They
are Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware,
(26:08):
New Jersey, and New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont,
and Hawaii. And Utah is the only state with a
Republican legislator and Republican governor who would overturn that in
a heartbeat. The District of Columbia also gives out driver's
licenses to illegal aliens, as does Puerto Rico, which okay anyway,
So I don't know why Hawaii does. I mean, I
(26:29):
guess they're on an island whatever. So there's no national
data base with a number of illegals with driver's licenses.
This is a data compiled. The data I'm offer New
York is compiled by the National Conference of State Legislators
and the National Immigration Law Center. There are an estimate,
and this is just an estimate because we only really
have data on a few states, so we have to
(26:51):
kind of like average them ount from what other states
are issuing. But there's probably two million illegal aliens with
legal drives licenses on the road throughout the country today.
When it comes to commercial driver's licenses, it's really even
more difficult to figure out the exact number. But the
best estimate that comes is a twenty twenty five over
(27:12):
Driver report that finds approximately sixty thousand non citizens currently
have commercial driver's licenses, which is I mean, like crazy high,
I mean, we anyone can I mean not anyone? Most
people should be able to get a driver's licenses or
has one. So I don't know why p American citizens
(27:33):
who can't find a job, aren't getting those jobs over
non citizens? But whatever, the question of a real ID, yeah,
real ID should have worked. But like so much of
the nine to eleven Commission's findings, that was pushed aside
and implementation was pushed aside because we the Bush administration
was so dead set on going to war in Iraq.
(27:54):
There was a lot in the nine to eleven Commission
that was that came out in two thousand and four
that seems like such common sense to deal with counter
terrorism that was never implemented, like entry eggs of visa systems,
like a border barrier. Yeah, the nine to eleven Commission
called for a fence or wall type situation long before
Trump ever came down, you know, the escalator, but the
(28:16):
Bush administration just flat out ignored it. They had some
dimsy little thing over a few hundred miles. It wasn't
a complete defense. It was a It was a joke,
is what it was. And he did not do the
real idea act. So some of the stuff still hasn't happened, Like,
some of this stuff is still not complete twenty years later,
(28:38):
twenty what is it? Twenty one years later? And twenty
one years after the commission was reported and twenty four
years since nine to eleven, and states have certainly have
a level autonomy and the Republican president and no Republican president,
not even Trump, has put teeth to this issue. If
you wanted the federal government to stop this, all you
(29:00):
would have to do is get the Republican Congress and
Republican Senate or Republican president to sit there and to
deny highway funds to states that offer illegal aliens driver's licenses.
That's all you'd have to do. This is how the
seat belt laws really took off. Seat belt laws. I mean,
(29:20):
there was Moms against drunk driving, that was a big
part of it, but seat belt laws really started popping
up across states back in I think the nineteen seventies
and sixties. I think that's mostly the seventies, but they
really started popping up a lot in the seventies and eighties.
Because there is it is attached to federal highway funds.
That is why only one state, New Hampshire, does not
(29:44):
have seatbelt laws, and that's why they do not get
federal highway funds, or they I guess they get part
of it. They don't get the full amount because they
will not pass the seat belt law. Okay. Last question
comes from Frank. He writes, I live in Westchester County,
New York. I'm a registered as an independent years ago,
but I thought it would cut down on mails and
phone calls from the Republican Party. Is there any benefit
(30:05):
of switching my registration to a Republican other than being
able to vote in primaries? I don't think I've ever
voted for a Democrat except for a local judge where
Conservatives run as Democrats just to win. Is there any benefit? Well,
I think actually as an independent, you're more likely to
get called in a general election, in my opinion, because
(30:26):
it depends on west part of Westchester you're living. If
you're living in a very heavily democratic part of the county,
it is likely that there's probably no Republican primaries to
begin with. The Republican Party just nominate somebody and they
get the party line and then they run. And independents
(30:47):
are really a good group to go to to try
to swing towards them. So I think that you probably
get actually more letters and registration being an independent than
a Republican. I don't know. That's when my opinion is
I'm a Murger Republican. I've I think that being able
to vote in the primaries matters a lot more. And
(31:08):
I don't think you'd be actually inconvenience that much with
mail and other stuff. I think, I really do think
you probably get more as an independent. So yeah, I mean, yes,
you got to vote in primaries. That's the one advantage.
I think you'll actually get less male and that's it.
I mean, there's nothing else really to it, aside from
I guess showing support for the party. Support for it
(31:31):
looks good on when when newsreels come out, they sit
there and say so when so many people join the
republic Party as a one person thing, it doesn't really matter.
When thousands of people do it, it does matter. I
mean that's when people say they should I join, Should
I become a Catholic? I mean I've been a Catholic
my whole life. Yeah, I would say yes, but that's
my own But it's my own bias. So so come
(31:52):
and join the Republican Party. The water is warm. I
don't think there's any specific advantage to it, aside from
voting in primaries. But I do think if you're worried
about the mail and the phone calls. I don't think
that you're gonna I think the only thing that will
happen for you is you'll get petitioners to come to
sign a petition so people get on the ballot. Aside
(32:14):
from that, now it's about the same amount. So thank
you guys for listening to this podcast. Happy labored Day.
I'll be back on Thursday, post COVID feeling much better.
If you like this podcast, please subscribe on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts, and I will
see you guys then
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