In this episode of A Numbers Game, Ryan is joined by Cliff Maloney of Citizens Alliance to dissect the latest early voting data and election trends in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. Together, they examine how Democrats’ strategic use of mail-in ballots, early turnout, and redistricting advantages are influencing key races — and what Republicans must do to boost Election Day performance. 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
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to a Numbers Game Brian Grodowski. Well, you've
been asking for it, you've been demanding it, and it's
finally here. My YouTube channel where you're going to be
not only hearing but seeing every single episode is up
and running. You can, you know, not only just listen
to my nasally voice. You could see this face nerding out,
adding a touch of sarcas chasm to politics. And now
(00:25):
that you know, my relive is always sort of the
face for radio and the voice for silent pictures. But
I really am so excited that some people asked for this,
and I'm going to try to make the YouTube page informative,
put on graphs. I'm working through it. I'm starting this
whole entire thing. We're also gonna upload old videos, old interviews,
so you can actually see me and my guests having conversations.
(00:48):
I think that's super important because you guys got to
see little clips on social media, but not the whole
entire thing. So it's very exciting. Go to a Numbers
Game podcast or Ryan Gradusky on YouTube, click the subscribe
buttons so you can see all the new content and
some of the old content, and it's very exciting. It's
super exciting. I'm very excited that I did this, and
I'm glad that you guys push me to do it,
because I probably wouldn't have done it if I think
(01:09):
some people requesting it. So it's on YouTube. Check it out.
Before I go into the episode about the elections, because
that's honestly, what that's whatever wants to talk about right
now is just the elections. I'll go back into the
normal policy stuff and some current news and the data
behind it that's interesting, and then maybe towards the end
of the year we'll do some fun stuff. But I
(01:30):
have to do the elections right now because there's only
two more before the before it's over. And before I
go into that, I wanted to mention that on Tuesday
was the one year anniversary of me being canceled in
CNN for selling Mehdi Hassan. That I hope is Beeber
doesn't go off now. It's something I don't think about,
like I don't think ever about like this episode. I
(01:52):
only even it's only ever brought up to me when
I'm someone's introducing me who doesn't know me, who comments
on it as if it's like as if I haven't
heard a twenty million times in the last year. But anyway,
it came and went, and I didn't think anything of it. Well,
Mehdi posts this long Twitter thing which he does not
let responses on because he didn't want to get ratioed.
But this long thing about how he had overcome racism
(02:15):
and how CNN has not invited him back on, and
how he's just one giant victim and you know, begging
and pleading basically for CNN to have him on. Which
the fact that you would grovel to get on the
lowest rated cable news network that has purposely not had
you on after you've been fired from MSNBC and stormed
(02:36):
off the set of CNN when I was on it.
What kind of man are you like? I mean literally,
what kind of man are you to have to cast
yourself as the eternal victim. This is the only way
you can have kind of a car, This is the
only way you can have any kind of you know,
place in society, in the commentary space. You've got nothing
(02:57):
else of interest to bring to the table, which he
and most of the time, because I've seen a few
of his interviews. But the reason CNN has not really
had him on The reason MSNBC fired him is he's
an immensely unlikable person and he's insufferable. And I will
say that host of CNN, after the whole entire debacle happened,
(03:18):
reached out to me and said, oh, thank god, you
said to Meddi, he's the worst person on television. So
that's the reason you're not getting on. It's not because
you're a victim. It's not because everyone hates you. It's
not because everyone hates you because you're you know, you're Muslim,
or because you're a victim, or because you're brown, or
whatever the hell excuse you have. Now. They don't like
you because you're not likable. And anyway, the whole day
(03:41):
came and went. Abby Phillips was talking about it too.
These people cannot get a name out of their mouth.
She was on the Breakfast Club talking about it and showing
how she has, you know, Guardrails on debate. Meanwhile, liberals
have been on her show plenty of times saying far
worse things than my joke. And she's not bad than eye,
because that's that's Abby. Anyway, that whole tobacco blended me
(04:07):
this podcast and got me here, and I'm happy. I'm
happier being with you guys than I was being on CNN.
So let's go into the election and part two of
this conversation. I'm going to start talking about specifically the
early vote and an intensely look at the early vote,
and I have on the great Cliff Maloney from Citizens
Alliance to talk about that. So, but first we break
(04:29):
down the numbers for you to kind of understand where
we stand in the early vote in the New Jersey
governor's race. It it looks like Republicans must be waiting
for election day to show up. That is the hope
of Jack Chitarelli, because they are not showing up in
the early vote. I mean, Democrats are currently out voting Republicans,
(04:51):
not only by mail, which is very expected, but in
the in person voting. This is not where Jack Chitaly
wants to be. Democrats have five thousand more early votes
than Republicans. That's in person. When you count the mail
and the in person, Democrats have close to two hundred
and twenty thousand more votes banked than Republicans. Now, let's
(05:15):
go back to twenty twenty one into twenty twenty four.
In twenty twenty one Democrats on election day had two
hundred and seventy six thousand raw votes raw vote advantage.
That was their lead from the day, and you could
see that Jack Chadarelli only lost by eighty thousand votes,
so he got close to two hundred thousand votes on
(05:35):
election day. He just needed that eighty thousand more. Now,
in the last four years, Republicans have been registering many,
many more voters, way more than Democrats. Democrats have actually
been losing voters in New Jersey, but their participation rate
among these new Republicans is not showing up in the
early vote. That's a cause for a concern. I mean,
(05:58):
they really have to sit there and wake up, either
to start changing the trend lines or you know, they're
all going to set their alarm on Tuesday and be like, hey,
I'm here, I'm ready to vote. I'm gonna cast a
million ballots, and I'm going to sit there and overwhelm
the massive Democratic lead. At this point. In twenty twenty four,
(06:19):
Republicans actually had nine thousand more in person early votes
than Democrats. And Democrats now, as I said, have close
to five thousand more early votes in person early votes
than Republicans. For Chitarelli to win this at this point,
he needs either a a massive get out the vote
election day effort. I mean, I'm talking quarter a million,
(06:42):
three hundred thousand massive election day turnout in his favor
to independence to break by huge margins, or a sizable
chunk of the Democratic vote to break in his direction. Now,
remember it's got the support of a lot of Hasidic
and Orthodox Jews. They are registered Democrats, that's by and large,
so some of this early Democrat vote will be voting
(07:04):
for Republican two. There are also a lot of Asian
and Hispanic Democrats that voted for Trump in Northern Jersey
that traditionally vote for Democrats. If they're sticking with Trump,
these Latino Trump Democrats, like in Passaic County, if they
stick with Chitarely and they show up, that will be
good for Jack. But those are really the only ways
(07:24):
at this point. You know, this election is going to
have a lot more votes than in twenty twenty one,
but not nearly as many in twenty twenty four. Jack
is a very slim way of winning at this point,
and it's getting less and less and less by the
day because Democrats are building this firewall of early voting.
It's key that Republicans start realizing how important the early
(07:48):
vote is. Now, let's look look at New York City,
where the Republican is really not that important. I mean,
he's important, but it's not He's not going to win.
But the election is very, very interesting right now in
New York. If I had to guess, and looking at
statistics that are coming out, New York's have about twice
as many, if not more than twice as many votes
(08:08):
in this mayoral election as the last one. I'm hearing
from people doing statistics on this and doing modeling that
it could be as many as two point five million
people show up to vote in this mayoral election. There were,
for context, one point one million in the previous mayor
election and two point eight million in the previous presidential election.
(08:30):
So you're having close to presidential turnout. What does this mean,
especially for polling when it comes to quormo versus mandani,
Polsters create universes of who they expect to show up. Right,
they are expecting it's going to be a certain demographic
of this group and that group, and a certain amount
of blacks and whites and Latinos and old people and
(08:50):
young people and independence and Republicans. So they're building these
models out right now. And what happens when the total
vote turnout is far high higher than what's expected, is
that these models can be wrong, and sometimes be wrong
by quite a bit. There is some good news for
Cuomo in this raw data that we're seeing coming out
(09:11):
of the five Burroughs. The electric is a lot older,
significantly older than it was in the Democratic primary when
Mandanni won. In the primary, voters under forty were the
largest voting block, and they vote broke heavily from Mandanni.
But so far in this part sport of part of
the early vote, seniors are casting a majority of ballots.
(09:35):
I'll repew that seniors are casting a majority of ballots.
More New Yorkers between the ages of seventy five to
seventy nine have cast ballads than voters between under the
age of twenty five. So in that five four year
age black seventy five to sevent nine, they have cast
more ballots so far than the super young voters eighteen
to twenty four year olds. That's earth shattering that it
(09:57):
was not expected, because that is not what is happening
in the Democratic primary. Furthermore, the electorate is a lot
more democratic than it was in twenty twenty four. Zachary Denini,
who's been on this podcast and he is very, very
smart guy, he asked me that this election will be
about six points more Democrat than in the presidential election. Right,
(10:17):
Democrats will make up a bigger portion of the pie
in the mayoral race. Because it seems like even lower
propensity Democrats who don't typically vote in mayoral elections are
showing up. That looks like it's good news for Cuomo.
I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean so, but given that
they're older as well, that looks like it's good for Cuomo.
(10:37):
The other good news that Quoma has is that there's
a lot of people who are by demographic in his base,
right older voters, black voters, voters in southern Brooklyn which
is heavily Jewish, voters in western Queens, which is heavily black.
That is his key demographics, and they have been showing
up and as opposed to like what do they call it,
(10:58):
the Socialist belt in the New York City, the part
of Brooklyn and Queens that stretches across from Bay Ridge
near Staten Island, all the way to the tip of
the Bronx, everything that basically touches water near Manhattan, that
Socialist belt, the Commy Corridor, that's what they call the
Commy Corridor. Their numbers have been declining day in and
(11:18):
day out. So basically a lot of voters who were
so excited about from Mandonnie, they got out and they
voted the first day. There's more to be cast in
those areas. They could be waiting for election day, they
could be waiting for the weekend. Who knows, But so
far as the days have gone on, where Cuomo needs
the votes to come out of have been showing up.
Now it's not all bad news for Mendonnie because the
(11:41):
best counties that he's had, the counties where pollsters say
he's going to do the best, they're showing up in
big numbers Brooklyn and Manhattan. Brooklyn Manhattan have had good,
strong turnouts so far, better than any other borough. But
they're also more popular than any other Boat borough. So
it's not super surprising. Cuomo is going to need more
of that Upper East Side establishment black voter Jewish voters
(12:05):
sit there and come in strong. And also he's going
to need more Republicans to sit there and break for him.
There was a Quiney pc poll released on Wednesday that
foul Man Donnie's lead is slipping, but he still has
a sizeable ten point lead. It's forty three to thirty
three according to this poll, with Republican Curtis y while
only getting fourteen points. Now, I'm not going to I'm
(12:26):
not going to labor the point of how I feel
about Curtis and how he's handled this election. Well, all
the things he could have done for the Republican Party
by playing ball with Cuomo and trying to get support
and money for Republican caenants running for city council and
for state local offices in the state. But what it
shows is is that Curtis is not even winning a
plurality of Republicans. A plurality of Republicans are voting for
(12:49):
Cuomo according to the Quiney PAX poll, which is just
so sad. I mean, Curtis really is going to ruin
his legacy in this entire thing. I think the most
interesting fact aside that, though, is according to this poll,
when asked about religions, Cuomo is winning Catholics, Jews, and Protestants,
while Mandanni's winning Muslims and people with no religion, which
really shows the state of the Democratic Socialist Party. It's
(13:13):
really people with no religion that are voting most heavily
for for Mandani, and that is the soulless future of
that party. Now, I want to talk briefly about Virginia.
Because of Virginia, they do not have elections. They don't
they don't register people buy political party have so this
over and over and over again. So there's no registered
(13:33):
Republican Russian Democrats. They're only looking at how past performances
in counties have affected or will show up. Right, So
if they're saying, oh, this is super Trump or super
Harris County, then they're shrump with this percentage, and we
can guess how they're going to do so. And so
it's kind of it's kind of very voodoo science. I mean,
political science is voodoo science, but this is really voodoo science.
(13:54):
What is showing is that Trump counties, counties of Trump
one are at the very high end of turnout and
the very low end. And it's consistent Democratic counties that
really are in the middle for wins seers, who is
going to likely lose. I'm just telling everybody now. I
know that their hopes are high, but it is what
it is, and I'm going to tell you guys the truth.
(14:15):
For her to lose by a small enough margin that
they protect state legislative seats and Jason Miorz wins the
attorney general race, who knows the lieutenant governor race. Polling
there is kind of all over the place. But for
Jason Mirs, who's the most likely Republican to win in
that race. For him to do that, she needs to
keep the gap on election on the loss probably within
(14:40):
seven points.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
If it gets to nine points, that amount of ticket
splitting is going to be very very difficult to carry
Mira's down ballid. That's my opinion. Those are the but
the early vote right now is really not It's I
don't want to say it's science. I don'tant to say
it's like the thing to look at. This is going
to decide the entire future, and there's nothing that could
trajectory because it's obviously not true. We've seen it in
(15:02):
past elections. But it's telling a narrative and telling a story,
and the story is very simple. Republicans need to get
more excited about these off year elections. About these local elections,
your local politics, your state politics. They matter a lot
more to your life on a day to daybreak basis
than whatever President Trump does in the White House. With me,
Next is my buddy Cliff. He's going to go into
(15:22):
how the early vody is shaking up both in New
Jersey and in Pennsylvania, WA. They have important races for
judges that will absolutely affect the state of the entire country.
So be right back with that. With me on today's
episode is Cliff Maloney from Citizens Alliance. Cliff, thank you
for being here.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Appreciate you having me so.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Cliff, you've been working in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. What
are some things you've seen on the ground.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I mean on the ground right now, let's start
with Jersey. I mean there's tons of energy. Jack Chitarelli
is really, you know, a great candidate to go up
against Cheryl. She really kind of represents the Kamala Harrison
New Jersey. The more voters hear from her, the more
they see her, the more they understand what she stands for.
They're they're losing their hemorrhaging votes. But I want to
be clear, Ryan, you know Jersey is not a state
(16:07):
that is like, you know, I'm optimistic, but we're not
supposed to be able to win Jersey. Jack lost by
three points, but that was after the Democrats had taken
the White House. Right now we have the opposite. We've
got Trump in the White House, we have the House
and Senate. You know, the pushback should go in the
opposite direction. So the fact that it's neck and neck
right now with polling, you know, really tells me that
there's an opportunity. But the voters on the ground are engaged, right,
(16:29):
they're encouraged. I mean when we're talking and what we're
doing is going to Republicans and we are trying to
get every single Republican that has a mail in ballot
to send it back. And when we're doing that, I mean,
you know, we're talking to patriots, but they're not always
so consistent with their voting. But they like Jack. I mean,
they're following the race. This is not considered an off
yer race by New Jersey standards, and I'm optimistic that
(16:52):
he's got a shot. It is a competitive race in
New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Now, how many mail in ballot requests people who've asked
for a mail in ballot and received it have not
returned it so far to our Republicans.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, so this data just said a couple hours ago,
but out of the roughly one hundred and eighty four
thousand Republicans who requested a mail in ballot, there are
still seventy six thousand that have a ballot sitting on
their table. Let me say that again for your audience,
because I think this is very important. There are seventy
six thousand registered Republicans in the state of New Jersey
(17:23):
who went through the process of requesting a ballot have
the ballot sitting on their table and they haven't turned
it in. And remember Jack going lost by roughly eighty
thousand votes in twenty twenty one. So my whole objective,
Ryan is we're going out there. We've knocked roughly four
hundred and forty thousand doors, we're trying to knock five
hundred thousand by Tuesday. But our whole objective is to
(17:45):
get those seventy six thousand Republicans to just get that
ballot back right, send it back in, get that as
low as we can, because this raise to me, that's
what it's going to come down to. Getting that number down,
having early vote actually compete and then we have to
dominate election day.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Well, I mean, the thing is, that's the difference between
now and twenty twenty New Jersey is that in twenty
twenty four, Republicans at this point we're winning the early
in person voting and right now they're losing it. So
it gives me cause for concern that Democrats won are
so excited to go vote. You know, across the country
are seeing this, but also that Republicans seem to think
(18:24):
that election day is you know, another year away or
something because they're not showing up in strong numbers. Are
you seeing that over in Pennsylvania, where you're also very
active in both the presidential election and this off year election.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, one last thing about Jersey, So Jack one election
day by two hundred thousand. What you just said is
actually a very good point, which is, if he's not
going to compete as well as he did in early vote,
he's going to have to win by roughly two hundred
and fifty thousand, or maybe even three hundred thousand, depending
on how the next couple of days go. So he's
going to need a huge turnout on election day. As
for Pennsylvania. Let me read you two numbers that to
(18:58):
me really show why I'm pretty confident about the Superior
Court and the Commonwealth Court races. And we can talk
retention if you want to. In twenty twenty five, right now,
if you look at the returns, Democrats are up two
hundred and seventy thousand. In terms of two hundred and
seventy thousand, more Democrats have returned abouot than Republicans in
(19:19):
twenty twenty three when we got to election day that
was four hundred and thirty thousand, So they're going to
trend higher than that two seventy number. But to me,
if you can keep that without eclipsing where it was
last you know, two years ago, the last off year,
they lost some of those judicial races by about seventy
thousand votes. So to me, the Democrats are lagging there.
(19:40):
But I want to be honest, Ryan, everyone's talking about
these retention races. In the history of Pennsylvania, only one
judge has not been retained and it was a huge scandal, this, this,
and this. So obviously every door we knock on we're
talking about voting no. But the real battles are going
to be the down ballot battles of not just you know,
folks of the superior I'm a wealth court, but the
(20:01):
county wide races, the school board races, the local dog
catcher races. Right, that's what we're trying to do for
permanent infrastructure this year, so that we can win those races,
but then set us up for success in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
What are some of the critical and I'll go back
to New Jersey in a second, what are some of
the critical counties that Republicans really should compete in, like
competing in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, So the simplest answer I have there is, if
you're looking forward and you're looking at what are the
Democrats doing now and what are they preparing for in
twenty twenty six, The three most competitive, most competitive congressional
districts are Districts seven, eight, and ten. That's Mackenzie, Bresnahan,
and Scott Perry. Now we flipped two of those to
Republican in twenty twenty four. So to me, there's tons
(20:49):
of really competitive school district races which are great, and
we're we're targeting a bunch of those. But if you
said to me, for the implications of the country and
moving forward. It's what we're doing on the in Districts seven, eight,
and ten, and that's Central PA, that's Lehigh. Obviously, Bucks
County is always a focus as a bell weather to
kind of see where we're going. But the Democrats this
(21:11):
year are focused heavily on the congressional districts, even though
there's nobody on the ballot. And why is that Because
if you can get a thousand low propensity Dems or
for US Republicans to vote this year, they're absolutely going
to vote next year. You're developing habit and so to me,
it's getting that permanent infrastructure in those key counties and
key districts to set us up for next year.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
So for those who don't have the congressional map in
their head like I do, seven and eight are in
the northeastern part of Pennsylvania and number ten, which is
represented currently and for a while by Scott Perry, is
around Harrisburg. It's around the capital of the state, which
has been treading blue for quite some time. Although Trump
did win it by a sizable portion, Scott Perry doesn't
(21:55):
perform as well as Trump and his district. But that's
neither here nor there, why is it? And I tried
almost putting a nail in my head screaming at people,
a nailing right against the wall, screaming people saying to them,
you have to vote early, because if you vote early,
your resources are not spent on you, and they're spent
where they need to go on election day to people
(22:17):
who are less likely to show up. Can you emphasize
why it's so important for Republicans to start voting early
and not to have this sanctimonious opinion of voting only
on election day.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Well, and look, here's the biggest objection we get. They
don't want to vote early because they don't trust the
post office. Here's the deal in Pennsylvania. It's simple. You
can go to your county office and you can request
an on demand, on demand mail in bout and emergency
mail in bout and all that is you're at your
polling location, you fill out the mail in ballot, you
give it to the clerk exactly what you would do
(22:48):
on election day. And when it comes to resources, Ryan,
you get this. So many people don't understand why the
Dems have this advantage. Twenty twenty is a great example. Okay,
Joe Biden racked up two million mail in votes to
die Trump, so let's call it six hundred thousand. That
means that Biden has one point four one point four
million more folks that he doesn't have to spend a
(23:09):
dime on, that he doesn't have to send a mail
or two that he doesn't have to go to their door.
They don't have to run digital ads targeting that person.
And so we're not here to say, hey, listen, we
love that there's fifty days of voting in Pennsylvania. But
you have two options. One you say, hey, we don't
like it, so we're just not going to compete. We're
going to guarantee a loss. Or two we're going to
fight fire with fire. We're going to compete against the
(23:31):
Democrats using their own tactics to try to win. So
to all the Republicans out there, go out and figure
out a way, whether it's voting by mail, if you
want to get out for the emergency ballot in Jersey,
you can do early voting, but you've got to create
a plan because the resources. We have to spend two
to three times as much money to turn out our
voters on election day. Because the universe is so large
(23:54):
compared to the Democrats. It's a great, great Annalis point
and I do think a lot of the Republicans are
learning it, but we still have a lot more work
to do.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, And there's just there is a very old mentality
of I have to only vote on an election day
and kind of making it a holidayven though it's not
a holiday. It's strange that the Democrats, which have been
trending older, are more fixed. Republicans are more fixed in
their ways than Democrats are towards the election day and vote.
What do you make of And I don't know if
(24:23):
you know the answer to this, but I'm going to
ask you anyway. There were a lot of first time
voters who voted for Donald Trump, a lot of first
time Republican voters two, a lot of like Hispanics and
Asians specifically in young men. Are they showing up or
are they are they go to go back to being
Democrats or are they sleeping this election? I think that
that's a key decision, especially for Jack Chittarelli, who wear
(24:44):
Passeic County, which is a lot of Hispanics in it,
voted for Trump for the first time I think since
eighty eight I might be run on that one, but
I think it's eighty eight Republicans one Passaic County. Can
Jack count on those voters or are they back to
Democrats or are they not voting? Opinion and maybe not
specifically Passaic County but state as a whole.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
No, I think it's a great question. I think it's
going to be one of the things that determines the elections,
you know, across the country, both this year and next year.
I don't think they're going to switch back to Democrat.
I think it's did they just show up for Trump
and then they're going to stay home? Or do they
show up for Trump and now they're going to become
consistent Republican voters. The thing that I'm most interested in
with a lot of those voters is they did vote
on election Day? Yeah, some of them voted by mail
(25:24):
or voted early. But that's where election day is going
to do the talking.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
If jacktion let me say this, and I'm just going
to be very blunt and honest, Ryan, You're always somebody
to kind of not, you know, have sensationalism, right, we
talk about the true rational state of things. If Jack
Chener rowing on wins election day by one hundred and
fifty thousand votes, he is not governed, right, and so
there's going to be a large portion of those people
that are going to depend on does he win it
by two hundred does he win it by two fifty
(25:49):
and he's governor? That I think is the question voters.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
So because the oh, I'm sure. So you're saying if
the vote is not large enough on election day.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Correct, So if he doesn't win by a margin of
two t one by two hundred thousand roughly in twenty
twenty one, and so if we're seeing kind of these
numbers as we are now, which are not fantastic, We're
not winning early vote by five points, right, We're losing
early vote. We're down here a couple thousand votes, which
is saying something when you compare it to four years ago.
So when you asked me about these Trump voters that
(26:18):
came out for the first time, it's TBD until we
get to election day. Because a lot of them were
election day voters. I think Jack's done a great job
to try to get them to come out. I don't
know how much they're going to be motivated because do
they see Cheryl as that much of a motivation to
come out.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
I hope they do.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I think a lot of the messaging that everybody's doing
is to try to drive that. But what we're hearing
at the door from a lot of Hispanics and Black
voters that voted for Trump is they're in for Jack right.
They're returning their ballots. Election day is going to be
with determines. Does he win it by two hundred thousand,
does he win it by two fifty. I think we
have to be in that range to pull it off.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
So I have some good gossip for you that I
haven't shared on the podcast yet. One of my Democratic
consultant friends told me that Mickey Cheryl is telling people
that she's planning to run for president in twenty twenty eight,
right after she wins the New Jersey governorship. But she
has got she's going to be the female candidate to run,
and she is planning and plotting a presidential run, you know.
(27:19):
And she says she'd believes she has this run in
the bag, and this New Jersey is just this quick
stepping stone she's going to make and turn right around.
And she has this charisma and unique ability and everyone's
gonna be shocked in an election day. I think it's
hysterical because there's probably no state that the rest of
the car. I'll tell you this little joke. I had
a good friend back in twenty fourteen when it was
(27:40):
looking like Christy and Cuoma, we're going to run. One
of my friends, a smart Democrat, said to me, if
it's Christi versus Cuomo, forty eight states will leave the Union.
And that is basically if it's New York versus New Jersey,
because there is not a demographic that most of the
country's like, oh god, Jersey and New York that they
cannot stand more so. But she does believe that she
(28:00):
is going to run for president in the blink of
an eye. And it's crazy. But this is what she's plotting.
This is why I think some of her supporters are
working so hard for her, so they think that this
is a quick turnaround for the White House.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Talk about being tone deaf. I mean, really, any Democrat
that is even mildly talented should win New Jersey by
five points at a minimum, at a minimum, and here
she is in this dead heat race. But she, like
I said, I mean, this isn't a talking point. This
isn't rhetoric. She reminds me of Kamala Harris. The more
that voters interact with her, the more vote she loses.
(28:36):
The more that she's out there, people just don't think
she's authentic. And now that you're telling me this inside scoop,
this gossip, she's also out of touch with reality. Right
what state does she think she can win in a primary?
You know, she can't even open her mouth without having
a gaff.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I guess she thinks that black voters in the Deep
South are really wanting Mikey Cheryl to be No, No, it's
just it's good gossip and it's interesting. And I think
that's that's why they're working so hard for her right now,
especially o whip with the votes is not because they
think of Trenton. They think of the thinking of the
Pennsylvania Avenue. Where can people go to help your organization
(29:15):
or boom go to get involved in any of this stuff,
especially in these critical Spring states that you're part of.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, So there's two very very distinct asks that I
have of everybody. Number One, if you want to come
to PA or New Jersey, come out knocked doors. We'll
get you set up over the next couple of days
as we lead up to Tuesday and two. If you
can't come out sponsor a ballid chaser, right, I told
you there's seventy six thousand of those folks in New Jersey.
We've got the same problem in Pennsylvania. One hundred and
(29:42):
seventy five dollars sponsors a full day of ballot chasing.
You want to give the PA, it's pachase dot com.
You want to give the New Jersey it's njchase dot com.
Really appreciate it, Ryan, But this is the final stretch
and we're not going to let up till we've knocked
five hundred thousand doors in both Pennsylvania and five hundred
thousand doors in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Well, Clip, thank you for being here. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Now it's time for Asking Me Anything. Guys. I love
the Ask Me Anything segment. Email me your questions Ryan
at Numbers Gamepodcast dot com. That's Ryan at Polural Numbers
gamepodcast dot com. I answer every question, either privately or publicly,
so I'm so excited to get these. First is Mike
from Nevada. He said that he has only been in
the political world. Maybe since twenty fifteen and paying attention,
(30:29):
especially locally in Nevada. I think I'm pronouncing Nevada correctly.
They're very Nevada and Oregon are very sticklers for how
you pronounce their state's name. So if I'm mispronouncing it,
I'm saying it like a New Yorker. I apologize, he says,
I know, we only have six electoral College votes, but
they have a Democrats have a super majority in the state.
(30:49):
I think Nevada has one of those eighteen to twenty two.
I guess the year cycles during COVID where Governor Sislac
really just let anything fly, including a mass of Jerrymander
and a Governor Lombardo who is a Republican FI has
such a split government that nothing is getting done. Okay,
that's absolutely true. It is completely flying under the radar.
(31:10):
How Democrats in Nevada had like a surgical hand when
it was coming to redistrict the state, and how that's
still affecting the state even though they have a Republican
governor and even the state voted for Donald Trump in
twenty twenty one, Nevada Democrats were very, very effective despite
the state moving six points from twenty twenty to twenty
(31:30):
twenty four. In the presidential election state, the state legislature
and the congressional delegation barely moved. The congressional delegation didn't
move at all but one district didn't vote for Trump.
But even at the state level, even at the state
assembly level, they barely move. So Trump won the state
fifty one to fifty one point five to forty seven
(31:51):
point five. Trump won only sixteen out of forty two
Assembly seats in the state, despite a state wide win
of three points. That means the only he only carried
thirty eight percent of all the Assembly seats. Republicans down
ballot running for state Assembly received one hundred thousand more
votes raw votes statewide than Democrats did, but only managed
(32:15):
to capture one single state Assembly seat. And there's only
one other state Assembly seat that Democrats won but Trump won.
So like there was one ballot, a splitting state a district,
every other district either Harris carried it or Trump carried it.
I will say there is some chance for Nevada Republicans
(32:35):
going into next year, into twenty twenty six. Now, the
way it works is that every two years, the entire
state Assembly is up, but they split the vote every
four years in the state Senate, so it's not every
district's not up every year. In the state Senate where
Democrats hold a super majority or closest majority, there are
two districts that one that Trump won and one that
(32:55):
he barely lost that are going to be really competitive.
That's District eight Western Las Vegas and District twelve in
southern Las Vegas. Trump one District eight, and he lost
District twelve by half a point. That is where Republicans
are going to put their efforts in to sit there
and break the Democrats and majority and get very close
to winning an outright majority in the state Senate. If
(33:17):
I was a Republican sultan the state, I would put
my efforts specifically, not only in Governor Lombardo's re election
and the congressional races, but those two state Senate districts
are super important to try to break Democrats control and
lock on the state. I did some numbers, some research.
There are ten districts in the state Assembly that Trump
(33:37):
lost by five points or less, right where Kamala beat
Trump by less than five points. Ten there's only forty
two Assembly seats, so and Democrats control twenty seven of them,
so almost one in three Assembly seats is close to
swing swing seat proportions because they managed to draw just
(33:58):
enough Democrats to keep it to reach Republicans. I mean,
as a political consultant, kudo's how good they were doing that.
But for Republicans it's going to be very difficult to
climb back. It's not impossible, especially the state senate level. Okay,
next question comes from Bill. He says, what are your
thoughts on paston versus Cornin in Texas? His packson offering
a model for ambitious ours in Oklahoma. Langford isn't up
(34:21):
until twenty twenty eight. Maybe most people will forget his
terrible immigration bill by then, but I won't. I won't either.
Bill More Generally, what needs to happen to get challengers
to weak red state senators? I guess us senators, and
I guess is what he means. If you were to
expand the idea beyond ask me anything segment, I'd be
(34:42):
curious to know how to pull this off. The Senate
Conservative Fund is out there, what do you think of them?
They were around pre Trump and they don't like amnesty.
But do you think they're going to they're in tune
with the current GOP. Oh, this is a hell load
of question. Okay, So first of all, Paxton versus Horny
in Cornyn is I got a lot more money than
Paxton does, and Paxton has a branding issue. I did
(35:06):
a lot of work in Texas and I knew people
who personally knew Paxton, and their comment on Paxson is
was always, he's a crook, but he's our crook. That's
the way conservatives feel about Paxton. And he's not trustworthy.
I mean's allegedly had affairs on his wife, allegedly was
not the he was not Jimmy Stewart. And mister Smith
(35:29):
goes to Washington, I'll just say that, and mister Smith
goes to Austin, And that kind of branding issue gives
people anxiety. But the biggest piece of anxiety that give
him is would he make the US Senate race in
Texas competitive if Democrats had a good year in the
generic ballad and if they put out a good candidate.
Because Democrats don't have a pathway to a majority in
(35:52):
the Senate. I mean, they kind of do, but it's very,
very very difficult. And the thing that Cornyn has that
Langford does is Cornyn has like decades of betrayal towards Conservatives. Right,
Cornyn was the person to vote for Democratic judges. He
was horrendous on immigration, which is a huge issue in Texas,
(36:12):
and he always was willing to work with the Democrats
for an amnesty bill. He's also kind of up there
in age, which I think things are affecting, and Wesley
Hunt being in the race absolutely will split the anti
cornn vote. I think that Cornying can be defeated if
it's a one on one race. I don't know if
Wesley Hunt's going to have the ability to do it. Now.
They do have runoffs in the state, and I don't
(36:33):
know if Corny can get a fifty one percent in
the first round of it. But it's gonna be very
expensive to sit there and try to hold this. This is
probably gonna be one hundred to two hundred million dollars
primary at least, I think one hundred to two hundred
million dollar primary, if not way more than that. And
they're really gonna gun for his weakness when it comes
to when it comes to issues like immigration. That's where
(36:55):
Paxton will shine. Paxson's going to shine on the show immigration.
He's better on it than Corner and he's probably the
I not the best ag on in the country because
we have Chris Kobek, but he's one of the top three.
He's really good on it. And he's going to say
I'm the authentic conservative despite my personal life. Don't look
at that. Cornyn, who's hired a lot of Trump staffers
(37:16):
from the twenty twenty four campaign, is going to sit
there and say I'm the guy who could win. And
Wesley Hunt's gonna be saying I'm the conservative who can win.
So yeah, as far as Langford goes, Langford's week, but
you have to have a top tier challenger, because you
really because Langford doesn't screw up that often. Despite him
looking like the like the killer doll who is from
(37:37):
a lot of horror movies, he is very rarely screwed up.
He's one of my least favorite senators though, so I
would love to see him a primary challenge. As far
as the Senate Conservative funding other organizations, they're not large enough, right.
There's no organization as large as the Club for Growth
or the Trump campaign, so they would need to be
(37:58):
sizely larger take on entrenched incumbents. Anyway, that's my answer
on that one. I Hopelink for loses and I don't
have an opinion on Texas right now. I'm interested to
see where things are going because certainly a lot of
there's a lot of Republican on Republican violence going on,
So we'll see who breaks in the lead as people
(38:19):
start paying more attention. I just want to give out
before I conclude this episode, I want to give a
personal thank you to one of my listeners, Vince from California.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that growing up
in the nineties, you would see a movie on television
and then you would never see it again. And I
saw this movie one time on TV that I loved
and was never able to see it again because that
(38:40):
was the nineties, and unless they replayed things or you
have the TV guide channel or the physical book in hand,
you just didn't even know what was playing sometimes. So
I mentioned this movie and I briefly brought it up
and said how much I loved it as a kid,
and Vince from California found the name of this movie.
I've spent no joke years trying to find this movie.
It was called the Phantom Toll Booth from when I
(39:00):
was a kid, who's made in nineteen seventy. Vince, thank you,
thank you, thank you. You have no idea how much
like you made my entire week because of your email
and how you found this movie, this random movie I
was barely able to describe that I saw when I
was like eight years old. So Vince, thank you. I
love my listeners, you guys, You guys do the most
and I really really appreciate it, and I appreciate you
(39:21):
all for listening to this episode. If you like this podcast,
you can now subscribe to it on YouTube, and you
could like it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever
you get your podcast. Please subscribe and I will talk
to you guys on Monday day before election day, so
tune in
Welcome back to a Numbers Game Brian Grodowski. Well, you've
been asking for it, you've been demanding it, and it's
finally here. My YouTube channel where you're going to be
not only hearing but seeing every single episode is up
and running. You can, you know, not only just listen
to my nasally voice. You could see this face nerding out,
adding a touch of sarcas chasm to politics. And now
(00:25):
that you know, my relive is always sort of the
face for radio and the voice for silent pictures. But
I really am so excited that some people asked for this,
and I'm going to try to make the YouTube page informative,
put on graphs. I'm working through it. I'm starting this
whole entire thing. We're also gonna upload old videos, old interviews,
so you can actually see me and my guests having conversations.
(00:48):
I think that's super important because you guys got to
see little clips on social media, but not the whole
entire thing. So it's very exciting. Go to a Numbers
Game podcast or Ryan Gradusky on YouTube, click the subscribe
buttons so you can see all the new content and
some of the old content, and it's very exciting. It's
super exciting. I'm very excited that I did this, and
I'm glad that you guys push me to do it,
because I probably wouldn't have done it if I think
(01:09):
some people requesting it. So it's on YouTube. Check it out.
Before I go into the episode about the elections, because
that's honestly, what that's whatever wants to talk about right
now is just the elections. I'll go back into the
normal policy stuff and some current news and the data
behind it that's interesting, and then maybe towards the end
of the year we'll do some fun stuff. But I
(01:30):
have to do the elections right now because there's only
two more before the before it's over. And before I
go into that, I wanted to mention that on Tuesday
was the one year anniversary of me being canceled in
CNN for selling Mehdi Hassan. That I hope is Beeber
doesn't go off now. It's something I don't think about,
like I don't think ever about like this episode. I
(01:52):
only even it's only ever brought up to me when
I'm someone's introducing me who doesn't know me, who comments
on it as if it's like as if I haven't
heard a twenty million times in the last year. But anyway,
it came and went, and I didn't think anything of it. Well,
Mehdi posts this long Twitter thing which he does not
let responses on because he didn't want to get ratioed.
But this long thing about how he had overcome racism
(02:15):
and how CNN has not invited him back on, and
how he's just one giant victim and you know, begging
and pleading basically for CNN to have him on. Which
the fact that you would grovel to get on the
lowest rated cable news network that has purposely not had
you on after you've been fired from MSNBC and stormed
(02:36):
off the set of CNN when I was on it.
What kind of man are you like? I mean literally,
what kind of man are you to have to cast
yourself as the eternal victim. This is the only way
you can have kind of a car, This is the
only way you can have any kind of you know,
place in society, in the commentary space. You've got nothing
(02:57):
else of interest to bring to the table, which he
and most of the time, because I've seen a few
of his interviews. But the reason CNN has not really
had him on The reason MSNBC fired him is he's
an immensely unlikable person and he's insufferable. And I will
say that host of CNN, after the whole entire debacle happened,
(03:18):
reached out to me and said, oh, thank god, you
said to Meddi, he's the worst person on television. So
that's the reason you're not getting on. It's not because
you're a victim. It's not because everyone hates you. It's
not because everyone hates you because you're you know, you're Muslim,
or because you're a victim, or because you're brown, or
whatever the hell excuse you have. Now. They don't like
you because you're not likable. And anyway, the whole day
(03:41):
came and went. Abby Phillips was talking about it too.
These people cannot get a name out of their mouth.
She was on the Breakfast Club talking about it and showing
how she has, you know, Guardrails on debate. Meanwhile, liberals
have been on her show plenty of times saying far
worse things than my joke. And she's not bad than eye,
because that's that's Abby. Anyway, that whole tobacco blended me
(04:07):
this podcast and got me here, and I'm happy. I'm
happier being with you guys than I was being on CNN.
So let's go into the election and part two of
this conversation. I'm going to start talking about specifically the
early vote and an intensely look at the early vote,
and I have on the great Cliff Maloney from Citizens
Alliance to talk about that. So, but first we break
(04:29):
down the numbers for you to kind of understand where
we stand in the early vote in the New Jersey
governor's race. It it looks like Republicans must be waiting
for election day to show up. That is the hope
of Jack Chitarelli, because they are not showing up in
the early vote. I mean, Democrats are currently out voting Republicans,
(04:51):
not only by mail, which is very expected, but in
the in person voting. This is not where Jack Chitaly
wants to be. Democrats have five thousand more early votes
than Republicans. That's in person. When you count the mail
and the in person, Democrats have close to two hundred
and twenty thousand more votes banked than Republicans. Now, let's
(05:15):
go back to twenty twenty one into twenty twenty four.
In twenty twenty one Democrats on election day had two
hundred and seventy six thousand raw votes raw vote advantage.
That was their lead from the day, and you could
see that Jack Chadarelli only lost by eighty thousand votes,
so he got close to two hundred thousand votes on
(05:35):
election day. He just needed that eighty thousand more. Now,
in the last four years, Republicans have been registering many,
many more voters, way more than Democrats. Democrats have actually
been losing voters in New Jersey, but their participation rate
among these new Republicans is not showing up in the
early vote. That's a cause for a concern. I mean,
(05:58):
they really have to sit there and wake up, either
to start changing the trend lines or you know, they're
all going to set their alarm on Tuesday and be like, hey,
I'm here, I'm ready to vote. I'm gonna cast a
million ballots, and I'm going to sit there and overwhelm
the massive Democratic lead. At this point. In twenty twenty four,
(06:19):
Republicans actually had nine thousand more in person early votes
than Democrats. And Democrats now, as I said, have close
to five thousand more early votes in person early votes
than Republicans. For Chitarelli to win this at this point,
he needs either a a massive get out the vote
election day effort. I mean, I'm talking quarter a million,
(06:42):
three hundred thousand massive election day turnout in his favor
to independence to break by huge margins, or a sizable
chunk of the Democratic vote to break in his direction. Now,
remember it's got the support of a lot of Hasidic
and Orthodox Jews. They are registered Democrats, that's by and large,
so some of this early Democrat vote will be voting
(07:04):
for Republican two. There are also a lot of Asian
and Hispanic Democrats that voted for Trump in Northern Jersey
that traditionally vote for Democrats. If they're sticking with Trump,
these Latino Trump Democrats, like in Passaic County, if they
stick with Chitarely and they show up, that will be
good for Jack. But those are really the only ways
(07:24):
at this point. You know, this election is going to
have a lot more votes than in twenty twenty one,
but not nearly as many in twenty twenty four. Jack
is a very slim way of winning at this point,
and it's getting less and less and less by the
day because Democrats are building this firewall of early voting.
It's key that Republicans start realizing how important the early
(07:48):
vote is. Now, let's look look at New York City,
where the Republican is really not that important. I mean,
he's important, but it's not He's not going to win.
But the election is very, very interesting right now in
New York. If I had to guess, and looking at
statistics that are coming out, New York's have about twice
as many, if not more than twice as many votes
(08:08):
in this mayoral election as the last one. I'm hearing
from people doing statistics on this and doing modeling that
it could be as many as two point five million
people show up to vote in this mayoral election. There were,
for context, one point one million in the previous mayor
election and two point eight million in the previous presidential election.
(08:30):
So you're having close to presidential turnout. What does this mean,
especially for polling when it comes to quormo versus mandani,
Polsters create universes of who they expect to show up. Right,
they are expecting it's going to be a certain demographic
of this group and that group, and a certain amount
of blacks and whites and Latinos and old people and
(08:50):
young people and independence and Republicans. So they're building these
models out right now. And what happens when the total
vote turnout is far high higher than what's expected, is
that these models can be wrong, and sometimes be wrong
by quite a bit. There is some good news for
Cuomo in this raw data that we're seeing coming out
(09:11):
of the five Burroughs. The electric is a lot older,
significantly older than it was in the Democratic primary when
Mandanni won. In the primary, voters under forty were the
largest voting block, and they vote broke heavily from Mandanni.
But so far in this part sport of part of
the early vote, seniors are casting a majority of ballots.
(09:35):
I'll repew that seniors are casting a majority of ballots.
More New Yorkers between the ages of seventy five to
seventy nine have cast ballads than voters between under the
age of twenty five. So in that five four year
age black seventy five to sevent nine, they have cast
more ballots so far than the super young voters eighteen
to twenty four year olds. That's earth shattering that it
(09:57):
was not expected, because that is not what is happening
in the Democratic primary. Furthermore, the electorate is a lot
more democratic than it was in twenty twenty four. Zachary Denini,
who's been on this podcast and he is very, very
smart guy, he asked me that this election will be
about six points more Democrat than in the presidential election. Right,
(10:17):
Democrats will make up a bigger portion of the pie
in the mayoral race. Because it seems like even lower
propensity Democrats who don't typically vote in mayoral elections are
showing up. That looks like it's good news for Cuomo.
I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean so, but given that
they're older as well, that looks like it's good for Cuomo.
(10:37):
The other good news that Quoma has is that there's
a lot of people who are by demographic in his base,
right older voters, black voters, voters in southern Brooklyn which
is heavily Jewish, voters in western Queens, which is heavily black.
That is his key demographics, and they have been showing
up and as opposed to like what do they call it,
(10:58):
the Socialist belt in the New York City, the part
of Brooklyn and Queens that stretches across from Bay Ridge
near Staten Island, all the way to the tip of
the Bronx, everything that basically touches water near Manhattan, that
Socialist belt, the Commy Corridor, that's what they call the
Commy Corridor. Their numbers have been declining day in and
(11:18):
day out. So basically a lot of voters who were
so excited about from Mandonnie, they got out and they
voted the first day. There's more to be cast in
those areas. They could be waiting for election day, they
could be waiting for the weekend. Who knows, But so
far as the days have gone on, where Cuomo needs
the votes to come out of have been showing up.
Now it's not all bad news for Mendonnie because the
(11:41):
best counties that he's had, the counties where pollsters say
he's going to do the best, they're showing up in
big numbers Brooklyn and Manhattan. Brooklyn Manhattan have had good,
strong turnouts so far, better than any other borough. But
they're also more popular than any other Boat borough. So
it's not super surprising. Cuomo is going to need more
of that Upper East Side establishment black voter Jewish voters
(12:05):
sit there and come in strong. And also he's going
to need more Republicans to sit there and break for him.
There was a Quiney pc poll released on Wednesday that
foul Man Donnie's lead is slipping, but he still has
a sizeable ten point lead. It's forty three to thirty
three according to this poll, with Republican Curtis y while
only getting fourteen points. Now, I'm not going to I'm
(12:26):
not going to labor the point of how I feel
about Curtis and how he's handled this election. Well, all
the things he could have done for the Republican Party
by playing ball with Cuomo and trying to get support
and money for Republican caenants running for city council and
for state local offices in the state. But what it
shows is is that Curtis is not even winning a
plurality of Republicans. A plurality of Republicans are voting for
(12:49):
Cuomo according to the Quiney PAX poll, which is just
so sad. I mean, Curtis really is going to ruin
his legacy in this entire thing. I think the most
interesting fact aside that, though, is according to this poll,
when asked about religions, Cuomo is winning Catholics, Jews, and Protestants,
while Mandanni's winning Muslims and people with no religion, which
really shows the state of the Democratic Socialist Party. It's
(13:13):
really people with no religion that are voting most heavily
for for Mandani, and that is the soulless future of
that party. Now, I want to talk briefly about Virginia.
Because of Virginia, they do not have elections. They don't
they don't register people buy political party have so this
over and over and over again. So there's no registered
(13:33):
Republican Russian Democrats. They're only looking at how past performances
in counties have affected or will show up. Right, So
if they're saying, oh, this is super Trump or super
Harris County, then they're shrump with this percentage, and we
can guess how they're going to do so. And so
it's kind of it's kind of very voodoo science. I mean,
political science is voodoo science, but this is really voodoo science.
(13:54):
What is showing is that Trump counties, counties of Trump
one are at the very high end of turnout and
the very low end. And it's consistent Democratic counties that
really are in the middle for wins seers, who is
going to likely lose. I'm just telling everybody now. I
know that their hopes are high, but it is what
it is, and I'm going to tell you guys the truth.
(14:15):
For her to lose by a small enough margin that
they protect state legislative seats and Jason Miorz wins the
attorney general race, who knows the lieutenant governor race. Polling
there is kind of all over the place. But for
Jason Mirs, who's the most likely Republican to win in
that race. For him to do that, she needs to
keep the gap on election on the loss probably within
(14:40):
seven points.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
If it gets to nine points, that amount of ticket
splitting is going to be very very difficult to carry
Mira's down ballid. That's my opinion. Those are the but
the early vote right now is really not It's I
don't want to say it's science. I don'tant to say
it's like the thing to look at. This is going
to decide the entire future, and there's nothing that could
trajectory because it's obviously not true. We've seen it in
(15:02):
past elections. But it's telling a narrative and telling a story,
and the story is very simple. Republicans need to get
more excited about these off year elections. About these local elections,
your local politics, your state politics. They matter a lot
more to your life on a day to daybreak basis
than whatever President Trump does in the White House. With me,
Next is my buddy Cliff. He's going to go into
(15:22):
how the early vody is shaking up both in New
Jersey and in Pennsylvania, WA. They have important races for
judges that will absolutely affect the state of the entire country.
So be right back with that. With me on today's
episode is Cliff Maloney from Citizens Alliance. Cliff, thank you
for being here.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Appreciate you having me so.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Cliff, you've been working in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. What
are some things you've seen on the ground.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I mean on the ground right now, let's start
with Jersey. I mean there's tons of energy. Jack Chitarelli
is really, you know, a great candidate to go up
against Cheryl. She really kind of represents the Kamala Harrison
New Jersey. The more voters hear from her, the more
they see her, the more they understand what she stands for.
They're they're losing their hemorrhaging votes. But I want to
be clear, Ryan, you know Jersey is not a state
(16:07):
that is like, you know, I'm optimistic, but we're not
supposed to be able to win Jersey. Jack lost by
three points, but that was after the Democrats had taken
the White House. Right now we have the opposite. We've
got Trump in the White House, we have the House
and Senate. You know, the pushback should go in the
opposite direction. So the fact that it's neck and neck
right now with polling, you know, really tells me that
there's an opportunity. But the voters on the ground are engaged, right,
(16:29):
they're encouraged. I mean when we're talking and what we're
doing is going to Republicans and we are trying to
get every single Republican that has a mail in ballot
to send it back. And when we're doing that, I mean,
you know, we're talking to patriots, but they're not always
so consistent with their voting. But they like Jack. I mean,
they're following the race. This is not considered an off
yer race by New Jersey standards, and I'm optimistic that
(16:52):
he's got a shot. It is a competitive race in
New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Now, how many mail in ballot requests people who've asked
for a mail in ballot and received it have not
returned it so far to our Republicans.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, so this data just said a couple hours ago,
but out of the roughly one hundred and eighty four
thousand Republicans who requested a mail in ballot, there are
still seventy six thousand that have a ballot sitting on
their table. Let me say that again for your audience,
because I think this is very important. There are seventy
six thousand registered Republicans in the state of New Jersey
(17:23):
who went through the process of requesting a ballot have
the ballot sitting on their table and they haven't turned
it in. And remember Jack going lost by roughly eighty
thousand votes in twenty twenty one. So my whole objective,
Ryan is we're going out there. We've knocked roughly four
hundred and forty thousand doors, we're trying to knock five
hundred thousand by Tuesday. But our whole objective is to
(17:45):
get those seventy six thousand Republicans to just get that
ballot back right, send it back in, get that as
low as we can, because this raise to me, that's
what it's going to come down to. Getting that number down,
having early vote actually compete and then we have to
dominate election day.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Well, I mean, the thing is, that's the difference between
now and twenty twenty New Jersey is that in twenty
twenty four, Republicans at this point we're winning the early
in person voting and right now they're losing it. So
it gives me cause for concern that Democrats won are
so excited to go vote. You know, across the country
are seeing this, but also that Republicans seem to think
(18:24):
that election day is you know, another year away or
something because they're not showing up in strong numbers. Are
you seeing that over in Pennsylvania, where you're also very
active in both the presidential election and this off year election.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, one last thing about Jersey, So Jack one election
day by two hundred thousand. What you just said is
actually a very good point, which is, if he's not
going to compete as well as he did in early vote,
he's going to have to win by roughly two hundred
and fifty thousand, or maybe even three hundred thousand, depending
on how the next couple of days go. So he's
going to need a huge turnout on election day. As
for Pennsylvania. Let me read you two numbers that to
(18:58):
me really show why I'm pretty confident about the Superior
Court and the Commonwealth Court races. And we can talk
retention if you want to. In twenty twenty five, right now,
if you look at the returns, Democrats are up two
hundred and seventy thousand. In terms of two hundred and
seventy thousand, more Democrats have returned abouot than Republicans in
(19:19):
twenty twenty three when we got to election day that
was four hundred and thirty thousand, So they're going to
trend higher than that two seventy number. But to me,
if you can keep that without eclipsing where it was
last you know, two years ago, the last off year,
they lost some of those judicial races by about seventy
thousand votes. So to me, the Democrats are lagging there.
(19:40):
But I want to be honest, Ryan, everyone's talking about
these retention races. In the history of Pennsylvania, only one
judge has not been retained and it was a huge scandal, this, this,
and this. So obviously every door we knock on we're
talking about voting no. But the real battles are going
to be the down ballot battles of not just you know,
folks of the superior I'm a wealth court, but the
(20:01):
county wide races, the school board races, the local dog
catcher races. Right, that's what we're trying to do for
permanent infrastructure this year, so that we can win those races,
but then set us up for success in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
What are some of the critical and I'll go back
to New Jersey in a second, what are some of
the critical counties that Republicans really should compete in, like
competing in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, So the simplest answer I have there is, if
you're looking forward and you're looking at what are the
Democrats doing now and what are they preparing for in
twenty twenty six, The three most competitive, most competitive congressional
districts are Districts seven, eight, and ten. That's Mackenzie, Bresnahan,
and Scott Perry. Now we flipped two of those to
Republican in twenty twenty four. So to me, there's tons
(20:49):
of really competitive school district races which are great, and
we're we're targeting a bunch of those. But if you
said to me, for the implications of the country and
moving forward. It's what we're doing on the in Districts seven, eight,
and ten, and that's Central PA, that's Lehigh. Obviously, Bucks
County is always a focus as a bell weather to
kind of see where we're going. But the Democrats this
(21:11):
year are focused heavily on the congressional districts, even though
there's nobody on the ballot. And why is that Because
if you can get a thousand low propensity Dems or
for US Republicans to vote this year, they're absolutely going
to vote next year. You're developing habit and so to me,
it's getting that permanent infrastructure in those key counties and
key districts to set us up for next year.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
So for those who don't have the congressional map in
their head like I do, seven and eight are in
the northeastern part of Pennsylvania and number ten, which is
represented currently and for a while by Scott Perry, is
around Harrisburg. It's around the capital of the state, which
has been treading blue for quite some time. Although Trump
did win it by a sizable portion, Scott Perry doesn't
(21:55):
perform as well as Trump and his district. But that's
neither here nor there, why is it? And I tried
almost putting a nail in my head screaming at people,
a nailing right against the wall, screaming people saying to them,
you have to vote early, because if you vote early,
your resources are not spent on you, and they're spent
where they need to go on election day to people
(22:17):
who are less likely to show up. Can you emphasize
why it's so important for Republicans to start voting early
and not to have this sanctimonious opinion of voting only
on election day.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Well, and look, here's the biggest objection we get. They
don't want to vote early because they don't trust the
post office. Here's the deal in Pennsylvania. It's simple. You
can go to your county office and you can request
an on demand, on demand mail in bout and emergency
mail in bout and all that is you're at your
polling location, you fill out the mail in ballot, you
give it to the clerk exactly what you would do
(22:48):
on election day. And when it comes to resources, Ryan,
you get this. So many people don't understand why the
Dems have this advantage. Twenty twenty is a great example. Okay,
Joe Biden racked up two million mail in votes to
die Trump, so let's call it six hundred thousand. That
means that Biden has one point four one point four
million more folks that he doesn't have to spend a
(23:09):
dime on, that he doesn't have to send a mail
or two that he doesn't have to go to their door.
They don't have to run digital ads targeting that person.
And so we're not here to say, hey, listen, we
love that there's fifty days of voting in Pennsylvania. But
you have two options. One you say, hey, we don't
like it, so we're just not going to compete. We're
going to guarantee a loss. Or two we're going to
fight fire with fire. We're going to compete against the
(23:31):
Democrats using their own tactics to try to win. So
to all the Republicans out there, go out and figure
out a way, whether it's voting by mail, if you
want to get out for the emergency ballot in Jersey,
you can do early voting, but you've got to create
a plan because the resources. We have to spend two
to three times as much money to turn out our
voters on election day. Because the universe is so large
(23:54):
compared to the Democrats. It's a great, great Annalis point
and I do think a lot of the Republicans are
learning it, but we still have a lot more work
to do.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, And there's just there is a very old mentality
of I have to only vote on an election day
and kind of making it a holidayven though it's not
a holiday. It's strange that the Democrats, which have been
trending older, are more fixed. Republicans are more fixed in
their ways than Democrats are towards the election day and vote.
What do you make of And I don't know if
(24:23):
you know the answer to this, but I'm going to
ask you anyway. There were a lot of first time
voters who voted for Donald Trump, a lot of first
time Republican voters two, a lot of like Hispanics and
Asians specifically in young men. Are they showing up or
are they are they go to go back to being
Democrats or are they sleeping this election? I think that
that's a key decision, especially for Jack Chittarelli, who wear
(24:44):
Passeic County, which is a lot of Hispanics in it,
voted for Trump for the first time I think since
eighty eight I might be run on that one, but
I think it's eighty eight Republicans one Passaic County. Can
Jack count on those voters or are they back to
Democrats or are they not voting? Opinion and maybe not
specifically Passaic County but state as a whole.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
No, I think it's a great question. I think it's
going to be one of the things that determines the elections,
you know, across the country, both this year and next year.
I don't think they're going to switch back to Democrat.
I think it's did they just show up for Trump
and then they're going to stay home? Or do they
show up for Trump and now they're going to become
consistent Republican voters. The thing that I'm most interested in
with a lot of those voters is they did vote
on election Day? Yeah, some of them voted by mail
(25:24):
or voted early. But that's where election day is going
to do the talking.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
If jacktion let me say this, and I'm just going
to be very blunt and honest, Ryan, You're always somebody
to kind of not, you know, have sensationalism, right, we
talk about the true rational state of things. If Jack
Chener rowing on wins election day by one hundred and
fifty thousand votes, he is not governed, right, and so
there's going to be a large portion of those people
that are going to depend on does he win it
by two hundred does he win it by two fifty
(25:49):
and he's governor? That I think is the question voters.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
So because the oh, I'm sure. So you're saying if
the vote is not large enough on election day.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Correct, So if he doesn't win by a margin of
two t one by two hundred thousand roughly in twenty
twenty one, and so if we're seeing kind of these
numbers as we are now, which are not fantastic, We're
not winning early vote by five points, right, We're losing
early vote. We're down here a couple thousand votes, which
is saying something when you compare it to four years ago.
So when you asked me about these Trump voters that
(26:18):
came out for the first time, it's TBD until we
get to election day. Because a lot of them were
election day voters. I think Jack's done a great job
to try to get them to come out. I don't
know how much they're going to be motivated because do
they see Cheryl as that much of a motivation to
come out.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
I hope they do.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I think a lot of the messaging that everybody's doing
is to try to drive that. But what we're hearing
at the door from a lot of Hispanics and Black
voters that voted for Trump is they're in for Jack right.
They're returning their ballots. Election day is going to be
with determines. Does he win it by two hundred thousand,
does he win it by two fifty. I think we
have to be in that range to pull it off.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
So I have some good gossip for you that I
haven't shared on the podcast yet. One of my Democratic
consultant friends told me that Mickey Cheryl is telling people
that she's planning to run for president in twenty twenty eight,
right after she wins the New Jersey governorship. But she
has got she's going to be the female candidate to run,
and she is planning and plotting a presidential run, you know.
(27:19):
And she says she'd believes she has this run in
the bag, and this New Jersey is just this quick
stepping stone she's going to make and turn right around.
And she has this charisma and unique ability and everyone's
gonna be shocked in an election day. I think it's
hysterical because there's probably no state that the rest of
the car. I'll tell you this little joke. I had
a good friend back in twenty fourteen when it was
(27:40):
looking like Christy and Cuoma, we're going to run. One
of my friends, a smart Democrat, said to me, if
it's Christi versus Cuomo, forty eight states will leave the Union.
And that is basically if it's New York versus New Jersey,
because there is not a demographic that most of the
country's like, oh god, Jersey and New York that they
cannot stand more so. But she does believe that she
(28:00):
is going to run for president in the blink of
an eye. And it's crazy. But this is what she's plotting.
This is why I think some of her supporters are
working so hard for her, so they think that this
is a quick turnaround for the White House.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Talk about being tone deaf. I mean, really, any Democrat
that is even mildly talented should win New Jersey by
five points at a minimum, at a minimum, and here
she is in this dead heat race. But she, like
I said, I mean, this isn't a talking point. This
isn't rhetoric. She reminds me of Kamala Harris. The more
that voters interact with her, the more vote she loses.
(28:36):
The more that she's out there, people just don't think
she's authentic. And now that you're telling me this inside scoop,
this gossip, she's also out of touch with reality. Right
what state does she think she can win in a primary?
You know, she can't even open her mouth without having
a gaff.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
I guess she thinks that black voters in the Deep
South are really wanting Mikey Cheryl to be No, No, it's
just it's good gossip and it's interesting. And I think
that's that's why they're working so hard for her right now,
especially o whip with the votes is not because they
think of Trenton. They think of the thinking of the
Pennsylvania Avenue. Where can people go to help your organization
(29:15):
or boom go to get involved in any of this stuff,
especially in these critical Spring states that you're part of.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, So there's two very very distinct asks that I
have of everybody. Number One, if you want to come
to PA or New Jersey, come out knocked doors. We'll
get you set up over the next couple of days
as we lead up to Tuesday and two. If you
can't come out sponsor a ballid chaser, right, I told
you there's seventy six thousand of those folks in New Jersey.
We've got the same problem in Pennsylvania. One hundred and
(29:42):
seventy five dollars sponsors a full day of ballot chasing.
You want to give the PA, it's pachase dot com.
You want to give the New Jersey it's njchase dot com.
Really appreciate it, Ryan, But this is the final stretch
and we're not going to let up till we've knocked
five hundred thousand doors in both Pennsylvania and five hundred
thousand doors in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Well, Clip, thank you for being here. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Now it's time for Asking Me Anything. Guys. I love
the Ask Me Anything segment. Email me your questions Ryan
at Numbers Gamepodcast dot com. That's Ryan at Polural Numbers
gamepodcast dot com. I answer every question, either privately or publicly,
so I'm so excited to get these. First is Mike
from Nevada. He said that he has only been in
the political world. Maybe since twenty fifteen and paying attention,
(30:29):
especially locally in Nevada. I think I'm pronouncing Nevada correctly.
They're very Nevada and Oregon are very sticklers for how
you pronounce their state's name. So if I'm mispronouncing it,
I'm saying it like a New Yorker. I apologize, he says,
I know, we only have six electoral College votes, but
they have a Democrats have a super majority in the state.
(30:49):
I think Nevada has one of those eighteen to twenty two.
I guess the year cycles during COVID where Governor Sislac
really just let anything fly, including a mass of Jerrymander
and a Governor Lombardo who is a Republican FI has
such a split government that nothing is getting done. Okay,
that's absolutely true. It is completely flying under the radar.
(31:10):
How Democrats in Nevada had like a surgical hand when
it was coming to redistrict the state, and how that's
still affecting the state even though they have a Republican
governor and even the state voted for Donald Trump in
twenty twenty one, Nevada Democrats were very, very effective despite
the state moving six points from twenty twenty to twenty
(31:30):
twenty four. In the presidential election state, the state legislature
and the congressional delegation barely moved. The congressional delegation didn't
move at all but one district didn't vote for Trump.
But even at the state level, even at the state
assembly level, they barely move. So Trump won the state
fifty one to fifty one point five to forty seven
(31:51):
point five. Trump won only sixteen out of forty two
Assembly seats in the state, despite a state wide win
of three points. That means the only he only carried
thirty eight percent of all the Assembly seats. Republicans down
ballot running for state Assembly received one hundred thousand more
votes raw votes statewide than Democrats did, but only managed
(32:15):
to capture one single state Assembly seat. And there's only
one other state Assembly seat that Democrats won but Trump won.
So like there was one ballot, a splitting state a district,
every other district either Harris carried it or Trump carried it.
I will say there is some chance for Nevada Republicans
(32:35):
going into next year, into twenty twenty six. Now, the
way it works is that every two years, the entire
state Assembly is up, but they split the vote every
four years in the state Senate, so it's not every
district's not up every year. In the state Senate where
Democrats hold a super majority or closest majority, there are
two districts that one that Trump won and one that
(32:55):
he barely lost that are going to be really competitive.
That's District eight Western Las Vegas and District twelve in
southern Las Vegas. Trump one District eight, and he lost
District twelve by half a point. That is where Republicans
are going to put their efforts in to sit there
and break the Democrats and majority and get very close
to winning an outright majority in the state Senate. If
(33:17):
I was a Republican sultan the state, I would put
my efforts specifically, not only in Governor Lombardo's re election
and the congressional races, but those two state Senate districts
are super important to try to break Democrats control and
lock on the state. I did some numbers, some research.
There are ten districts in the state Assembly that Trump
(33:37):
lost by five points or less, right where Kamala beat
Trump by less than five points. Ten there's only forty
two Assembly seats, so and Democrats control twenty seven of them,
so almost one in three Assembly seats is close to
swing swing seat proportions because they managed to draw just
(33:58):
enough Democrats to keep it to reach Republicans. I mean,
as a political consultant, kudo's how good they were doing that.
But for Republicans it's going to be very difficult to
climb back. It's not impossible, especially the state senate level. Okay,
next question comes from Bill. He says, what are your
thoughts on paston versus Cornin in Texas? His packson offering
a model for ambitious ours in Oklahoma. Langford isn't up
(34:21):
until twenty twenty eight. Maybe most people will forget his
terrible immigration bill by then, but I won't. I won't either.
Bill More Generally, what needs to happen to get challengers
to weak red state senators? I guess us senators, and
I guess is what he means. If you were to
expand the idea beyond ask me anything segment, I'd be
(34:42):
curious to know how to pull this off. The Senate
Conservative Fund is out there, what do you think of them?
They were around pre Trump and they don't like amnesty.
But do you think they're going to they're in tune
with the current GOP. Oh, this is a hell load
of question. Okay, So first of all, Paxton versus Horny
in Cornyn is I got a lot more money than
Paxton does, and Paxton has a branding issue. I did
(35:06):
a lot of work in Texas and I knew people
who personally knew Paxton, and their comment on Paxson is
was always, he's a crook, but he's our crook. That's
the way conservatives feel about Paxton. And he's not trustworthy.
I mean's allegedly had affairs on his wife, allegedly was
not the he was not Jimmy Stewart. And mister Smith
(35:29):
goes to Washington, I'll just say that, and mister Smith
goes to Austin, And that kind of branding issue gives
people anxiety. But the biggest piece of anxiety that give
him is would he make the US Senate race in
Texas competitive if Democrats had a good year in the
generic ballad and if they put out a good candidate.
Because Democrats don't have a pathway to a majority in
(35:52):
the Senate. I mean, they kind of do, but it's very,
very very difficult. And the thing that Cornyn has that
Langford does is Cornyn has like decades of betrayal towards Conservatives. Right,
Cornyn was the person to vote for Democratic judges. He
was horrendous on immigration, which is a huge issue in Texas,
(36:12):
and he always was willing to work with the Democrats
for an amnesty bill. He's also kind of up there
in age, which I think things are affecting, and Wesley
Hunt being in the race absolutely will split the anti
cornn vote. I think that Cornying can be defeated if
it's a one on one race. I don't know if
Wesley Hunt's going to have the ability to do it. Now.
They do have runoffs in the state, and I don't
(36:33):
know if Corny can get a fifty one percent in
the first round of it. But it's gonna be very
expensive to sit there and try to hold this. This is
probably gonna be one hundred to two hundred million dollars
primary at least, I think one hundred to two hundred
million dollar primary, if not way more than that. And
they're really gonna gun for his weakness when it comes
to when it comes to issues like immigration. That's where
(36:55):
Paxton will shine. Paxson's going to shine on the show immigration.
He's better on it than Corner and he's probably the
I not the best ag on in the country because
we have Chris Kobek, but he's one of the top three.
He's really good on it. And he's going to say
I'm the authentic conservative despite my personal life. Don't look
at that. Cornyn, who's hired a lot of Trump staffers
(37:16):
from the twenty twenty four campaign, is going to sit
there and say I'm the guy who could win. And
Wesley Hunt's gonna be saying I'm the conservative who can win.
So yeah, as far as Langford goes, Langford's week, but
you have to have a top tier challenger, because you
really because Langford doesn't screw up that often. Despite him
looking like the like the killer doll who is from
(37:37):
a lot of horror movies, he is very rarely screwed up.
He's one of my least favorite senators though, so I
would love to see him a primary challenge. As far
as the Senate Conservative funding other organizations, they're not large enough, right.
There's no organization as large as the Club for Growth
or the Trump campaign, so they would need to be
(37:58):
sizely larger take on entrenched incumbents. Anyway, that's my answer
on that one. I Hopelink for loses and I don't
have an opinion on Texas right now. I'm interested to
see where things are going because certainly a lot of
there's a lot of Republican on Republican violence going on,
So we'll see who breaks in the lead as people
(38:19):
start paying more attention. I just want to give out
before I conclude this episode, I want to give a
personal thank you to one of my listeners, Vince from California.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that growing up
in the nineties, you would see a movie on television
and then you would never see it again. And I
saw this movie one time on TV that I loved
and was never able to see it again because that
(38:40):
was the nineties, and unless they replayed things or you
have the TV guide channel or the physical book in hand,
you just didn't even know what was playing sometimes. So
I mentioned this movie and I briefly brought it up
and said how much I loved it as a kid,
and Vince from California found the name of this movie.
I've spent no joke years trying to find this movie.
It was called the Phantom Toll Booth from when I
(39:00):
was a kid, who's made in nineteen seventy. Vince, thank you,
thank you, thank you. You have no idea how much
like you made my entire week because of your email
and how you found this movie, this random movie I
was barely able to describe that I saw when I
was like eight years old. So Vince, thank you. I
love my listeners, you guys, You guys do the most
and I really really appreciate it, and I appreciate you
(39:21):
all for listening to this episode. If you like this podcast,
you can now subscribe to it on YouTube, and you
could like it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever
you get your podcast. Please subscribe and I will talk
to you guys on Monday day before election day, so
tune in
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