August 14, 2026 • 47 mins
On this episode of It’s a Numbers Game, Ryan Girdusky is joined by VoteHub Head of Data Science Zachary Donnini to break down the polling misses shaking up the 2026 election cycle.
Why did progressive and DSA-aligned candidates dramatically underperform expectations in Wisconsin and Michigan? Ryan and Zach examine the surge in primary turnout, the growing divide between highly educated urban progressives and white working-class voters, and whether pollsters are once again struggling to accurately measure the electorate.
They also dig into Black voter turnout, why Democrats are increasingly focused on electability, the limitations facing far-left candidates outside major cities, and what the latest numbers could mean for Republicans trying to hold the House and Senate in November.
Could a small polling error in states like Texas, Ohio, Iowa or Maine determine control of Congress? And are the warning signs from the Rust Belt pointing toward a much different 2026 midterm election than the national polls suggest?
Ryan and Zach break down the numbers—and what both parties should be watching as November approaches.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodski. Thank
you guys for being here. Okay, we had primary elections
on Tuesday, and I'm sure everyone kind of heard something
about them. I wanted to talk about it, but the
results didn't come until early Wednesday morning, and we had
to record the podcast before then, so didn't get to
do for Wednesday's episode. I want to actually talk about
it now, and I actually did one better because we
(00:22):
had to wait. I have the brilliant data scientist Zachary
Denini on with me. If you've listened to the show before,
you know him. He's so so smart. He actually this
is how bright he is. He in the Michigan primary
the week before, not only did he get the percentages
about right, like to the zero dot, he actually got
the total number of votes correct. I mean, he's brilliant.
(00:42):
So we're going to talk about how this primary is
shaken out, why the polls were so wrong, and what
it really means for November. But before we do, let
me give a rundown of what happened Tuesday nationwide. Because
I know a lot of people are busy, they're not
all paying attention to every election. I'm going to hit
the most important elections state by state, because there were
elections held in Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Carolina, and Alabama.
(01:06):
And here's everything you should know. In Vermont. Incumbent Republican
Governor Phil Scott is very likely to win his sixth term,
but the election for Lieutenant governor is really where the
battle is. Vermont, believe or not, has a Republican governor
and lieutenant governor. It's the first time that's happened since
twenty ten. And twenty twenty four, the lieutenant governor unseated
(01:26):
a progressive for the seat of the lieutenant governor. Obviously
they're both moderates, some would say liberal, but it's Vermont,
so take what you can get. Republican Lieutenant Governor John
Rogers defeated the progressive challenger in twenty twenty four, winning
forty six percent of the vote. Former Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray,
who left the seat back in twenty twenty two, won
(01:47):
her primary to take on the seat. We'll try to
win the seat again. She won sixty one percent. It's
the most competitive race in the state that you should
know about. Very often lieutenant governor becomes the governor So
if you know, for whatever reason, Phil Scott eventually not
for whatever reason, eventually he will retire. When he retires,
it will be important to have a Republican lieutenant governor,
(02:09):
and really getting John Rodgers a second term will matter
how aggressively Phil Scott ken campaign successfully for Republicans down ballot.
He did it before in twenty twenty four. Believe it
or not, Vermont had a red wave in twenty twenty
four because Phil Scott was so incredibly aggressive at making
sure Republicans were like down ballid. So we'll see in
Vermont if that says two that holds over. In Connecticut,
(02:30):
incumbent Governor Ned Lamont defeated a progressive challenger, winning sixty
seven percent of the vote. He will take on former
guests of this show, Ryan Fasio in November. But the
most shocking part of it was a seventy eight year
old incumbent congress named John Larson. He won his first
seat back in nineteen ninety eight and he's run for
office almost every two years since nineteen eighty two. Was
(02:52):
defeated by Luke Bronnan. He is the former mayor of Hartford, Connecticut.
I think this is one of those things where Braunin
had expected Larson the congressman to retire sometimes in twenty
twenty two or twenty twenty four, he didn't run for
reelection as mayor. He's kind of been hanging out, waiting
and waiting, and he just finally said, Okay, the weight's over,
I'm going to challenge you, and he beat him. Larson
(03:14):
is the eleventh incumbent House member to lose a primary
this year. That is the highest amount in a non
redistricting year. So not years that end with like you
know two, like twenty twenty two or twenty twelve, when
all the seats are changed. The highest amount in a
non redistricting year since nineteen seventy. By the way, we
still have more seats. Let's see if anything happens in Florida.
(03:36):
Let's se if anything happens in you know, a couple
of these other states. But that is really wild. In
twenty twenty four, only four congressmen in come and congressman
lost in a primary. So that's a big, big thing.
And I just about Larson. Like to quote Barber Streisan,
sometimes people stay too long at the fair, like he
should have retired. You've been running since nineteen eighty two.
(03:58):
That is five years before I was born. Like, at
some point, don't you just want to go spend time
with the grandkids or pick up a hobby. I don't know.
Over in Alabama, Republican Ret Marquise became the nominee to
take on incumbent Democrat House Member Chamari Figures. This is
the seat that was a Republican seat. The courts turned
it into a Democrat seat. Then the courts, the Supreme
(04:19):
Court overturned that. The courts reached the state legislator redrew
it into a more Republican seat. It's still fairly competitive.
It's one of the seats that is the most competitive
going into November. So Ret Marquees will be the Republican
nominee against Shermari Figures. Over in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham's
sister Darlene Graham. She came in first place, winning thirty
(04:41):
three percent of the vote. She obviously had the Trump endorsement,
and she had the Graham Institution, Graham Inc. Or whatever.
She had that organization behind her. She will go into
a run of election with Congress and Ralph Norman. Norman
has just run for governor where He came in third
place during that election, but he built up a bit
of a statewide name recognition. He was very dominant in
(05:04):
his congressional district, which includes Greenville and rock Hill, which
are two fairly large cities down in South Carolina. That's
how he kind of won. He didn't really come in
second place many places outside of the area that touches
the congressional district. Though. I think he'll have a tough
time beating her, but it will be such a very
low turnout election because it's a runoff special. I mean,
(05:28):
I don't even know how many people will go vote
for that, but it will be such a low turnout
that maybe he can do it, but it'll be very,
very tough. It wasn't super close, and once again, had
he come in second in a lot of different parts
of the state, I would say he has a chance,
but it really was just dominated by his congressional district.
Now here's where things get very interesting. Over in Minnesota.
(05:48):
Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. She is certifiably crazy. She defeated
Congressman and Ange Craig the Democratic in the Democratic primary
for Senate. She won fifty nine two thirty nine Flanagan
is she's she's she's wild. I mean, she's the one
who wears the T shirt saying protect trans kids with
a knife across it. She benefited tremendously from the fact
(06:12):
that Francesca Hung, who I will get to in a second,
was running because Francesca was off the charts, so because
other people were crazier, she kind of slipped in. What's
interesting about Peggy Flanagan, though, was the polls had it
as a tight race. Survey USA, which is one of
the premier pollsters in Minnesota, said that it was a
razor thin toss up race. Flanagin wiped the floor of
(06:36):
her She won by twenty points. The other race in
Minnesota that people said was going to be completely lopsided,
where it was going to be one person winning that
losing was Mike Lindell that my pillow CEO is running
for governor of Minnesota. He lost to Lisa Damouth. Now
he was endorsed by Trump. Obviously, everyone in Republican politics,
(06:57):
certainly every and over the age of forty, knows who
Mike Lindella is at this point, big supporter of the president,
big deny of the twenty twenty election. He's kind of
you know, obviously, and he has ever watched any conservative
news program, has probably seen a my Pillow commercial. But nonetheless,
and yet still Lindell had a lot of negative opinions
of him, even within Republican circles, and polls had him
(07:20):
finishing by a wide margin in first place, and he
ended up losing by to a distant second place, losing
by eleven points. It was a twenty something point swing
between what the polls are saying and what the election
was saying, just like Peggy Flanagan. And now let's talk
about the race that everybody talked about. The governor of Wisconsin.
(07:40):
The DSA back Francesca hung lost to Milwaukee County executive
by less than four thousand votes up out of almost
eight hundred thousand casts. This is after a poll after
a poll after poll show that she was going to
win by more than twenty points. I mean, one of
the other candidates dropped out because it said, why would
I run? Francesca is going to win this race, which
(08:04):
is crazy because who knows what would have happened had
he stayed into the race. He would have actually been
the spoiler Canada. Had he stayed in the race because
he was like, no, there's no way anyone can be Francesca.
She is just, you know, gonna dominate. And Francesca was crazy.
She's the one who didn't wanted to cancel Thanksgiving, she
hated Valentine's Day, she didn't like Christmas, she didn't like
(08:24):
Fourth of July, and her old tweets have been circulating
and since she lost, and like, it's just very millennial
generation to share things on social media. I want to
give a helpful tip as a consultant to anyone who
wants to run for office one day, do a clean
wipe of your social media before you run for office.
(08:48):
Just clear everything before you and now and so before
anything happens. Because Francesca had tweets up there that were like,
I'm so glad I didn't shave my legs tonight. People
were posting that. Another one said I was once I'm
going to be balls deep in a glass of bourbon.
I mean, like I was, like, it was funny, it
was very funny. But if you're already considered unhinged and
(09:13):
crazy and you have and you have a lot of
those things out there, it doesn't help your gase. If
you were you know, if Mitt Romney had a tweet
being like something you know, crazy and wild, or like
saying like, you know, one of my sons sucks at baseball?
Obviously did'en have twitter when when his son was younger?
But whatever, People would have forgiven him because he's so
straight laced. But when you seem nuts, when you say
(09:34):
things crazy on a regular basis and then you have
tweets like that, it only kind of reinforces why people
think you're nuts. So I want to ask the question
and pose the question, why did Poles get it so
wrong between what they thought voters were going to do
in both the Republican and Democratic primary in Minnesota, but
(09:55):
the Democratic primaries everywhere because remember this, the Poles were
off by double digits in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and just so
we could go over in Michigan where alb Dul said
was supposed to win by fifteen points and he won
by a single point. So here's I've been thinking long
and hard about this, and I have two reasons. One
that's good for Democrats and one that's good for Republicans.
One that's good for Democrats. Is this a big part
(10:17):
of polling when you are creating any kind of campaign.
If you're a campaign manager, and I've been a campaign
manager many times, the first thing you do is you
build a target universe. You say, Okay, my guy is
running for mayor. One hundred thousand people will run forte
vote for mayor. Three people are running. I need to
secure forty two thousand votes and I will absolutely get
(10:38):
the enough plurality to win this election. And you build
your entire campaign over finding those forty two thousand voters,
and you reach obviously more. You try to reach as
many as possible, but you always have to get You
have to id the forty two thousand that will vote
for you. That's kind of how you build that campaign.
Polls are no different. They say, let's look at a
likely voter registration base. Let's say there's going to be
(11:00):
you know, a million people who vote, and so I'm
going to pull estimates based upon what percentages of wh
groups I think are going to vote.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
There.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Part of the problem that polsters and these Democratic primaries
are having is that voter turnout is explosive. I mean,
the numbers are really sky high in all these primaries,
and I think part of the problem for polsters is
you're building universes that don't exist because the numbers are
too high. And I'll give you a perfect example. In
(11:28):
the Wisconsin governor's primary. Almost over seven hundred and ninety
one thousand people voted this time in twenty twenty six.
In twenty twenty two, there was an incumbent governor who
had a challenger. It was four hundred and sixty three thousand,
and the competitive election in twenty eighteen, which was a
Democratic year, it was five hundred and thirty eight thousand.
(11:49):
So when from five hundred and thirty eight thousand to
seven hundred and ninety one thousand, that's a remarkable, huge
increase of close to forty percent. I don't thing that
they modeled that out correctly. Over in Michigan, a very
similar thing happened in twenty twenty six this election last week.
One point five to three million people voted in that
(12:11):
Michigan primary. In the semi competitive election in twenty twenty four,
where at least Slockin, who's now a Senator, was running,
there was only nine hundred and thirty three thousand. Michigan
also was a problem where I went back up to
twenty twelve, there was a there's not been a primary
since before twenty twelve. When Gary Peters, the incumbent senator,
(12:31):
ran his primary, he was unopposed. So no election in
Michigan has ever had for a primary for the US
Senate has ever had more than one point one million
votes in it. This one had one point five million.
This is dramatic. And most, by the way, had seven
hundred thousand, five hundred thousand. No one came close to
one point five million. Democratic enthusiasm is off the chart,
(12:56):
and it's intent and it's real. It's not fake. It's
not the Internet. It's not something to raw raw Democratic support.
People need to understand that. So it makes it very
hard for polsters. But that is good for Democrats. What
is the good news for Republicans?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Then?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
The good news for Republicans is if you look under
the hood at most of these polls and you see
which is the demographics they were really getting wrong. The
polsters nailed the black vote being against the DSA candids.
We've seen that in poll up to poll. What they
got wrong was the white vote. They estimated the white
vote that el said would win the white vote by
big margins, and they estimated that Francesca hung would get
(13:31):
around forty five percent of the white vote. She ended
up with thirty nine percent. I don't think she got there.
I mean, it's hard because there's no real exit polls
to work with. We're really looking at precinct data. It
reminds me of the twenty twenty four pole over in Iowa.
Member of the famous Seltzer poll where it had Harris
beating Trump in Iowa. They said Seltzer said that she
(13:53):
was going to beat Trump in Iowa because Harris was
at a thirty five point lead among senior citizen women
and a two point lead among senior citizen men. Think
about that, senior citizen women in Iowa overwhelmingly white, like
ninety eight percent, overwhelmingly Christian, overwhelmingly evangelical, not a majority,
(14:13):
but a large plurality or evangelical white evangelicals. This is
not the crowd that would gravitate towards Kamala. In the end,
what I think happened was the people, the elderly people,
the people for sixty five who love MSNBC and CNN.
They're answering their phones at higher levels than normal because
(14:36):
in that exit polse in the Iowa's case, the exitpoles.
Harris won the senior citizen women vote by seven points.
He Trump won the senior citizen men vote by thirteen points,
so massive twenty point discrepancies in both those cases by
the best polster. Ever, she wasn't picking up on the
fact that white progressives are answering the phone in greater
(14:59):
frequency than other, you know, working class white people. I
am from a working class white family. If my grandfather
got a call from a stranger, he'd tell them, go
after yourself. I'm not telling you anything, so you could
sign me up for jury duty or something like that.
I mean, he would say something like that, they're not
going to answer a poll. My father, who loves Fox News,
watches it religiously, calls me to tell me who was
(15:21):
on this week. He does not answer poles. He tells
me he gets calls for poles and he hangs up
on the phone them you're not being heard. Then that's
that's fine. And the thing is among white progressives, some
view themselves as independent, some view themselves some don't have
college degrees. They managed to meet their way in a
general population. So that's why the polls. I think these
(15:42):
exit poles are really off. If you look at the
counties in Wisconsin. Remember polls ask mely the Homo win
between forty and forty four percent of the white vote.
I didn't have we don't have exit poles. But I
looked at the whitest counties in the states. To count County,
like Pepin County, it's a rural county, ninety eight percent white.
She got thirty one percent of the vote. Buffalo County
(16:04):
ninety seven percent white. She got thirty percent of the vote.
Lafayette County ninety seven percent white, she got twenty nine
percent of the vote. Green County ninety seven percent white,
she got thirty three percent of the vote. I don't
think she hit those that forty percent number, even though
she did very very well in like Milwaukee, among white
progressive areas, I don't think there was enough because she
lost the rules almost everywhere she goes. Samely with Lsaeed.
(16:27):
The New York Times created this blueprint of precinct data,
especially in Wayne County, which is home of Detroit and
outside of the super Muslim areas. In Wayne County, he
lost almost every other white majority precinct in the county.
I don't think he hit there, and he by the
way poles were saying. Emerson said that he was going
(16:47):
to win the white vote by by thirty points and
Detroit News said he was going to win by twelve points.
There's no way l said won either the white vot
by thirty or twelve points, even with the overwhelming Muslim vote.
I think that that is having a very important problem
with the Democratic primary polls. I think it's also having
(17:10):
a very important problem possibly with the general election polls.
I am not you guys know, I tell the truth.
I'm not cheerleading one side of the other. I mean
I am, but I'm living in the real world. I've
been talking about inflation and the economy and why it's
bad for Republicans, and I am not sugarcoating anything. I'm
trying to be as a middle of the road knowing
(17:32):
i'm a partisan as possible to give you guys the facts.
There could be a very real case, as we saw
in twenty sixteen, as we saw in twenty as we
saw in twenty twenty four, that the polls are undersampling
white working class people and that is going to affect
races like in Texas where James tall Rico is beating
(17:53):
Cam pax in all of these poles, not by much,
by a few points here and there. Because these polls
are finding that Ken Paxon is only winning the white
vote by fourteen points, a population that Trump won by
thirty three points. You see what I'm saying. If this
is an error, and it's an error across the board
in other polling, how does that impact Texas, Ohio, Maine, Iowa.
(18:18):
These are important questions because all these races are on
a razor thin margin. Fox New's just had Susan Collins
down by only two points. In me, if there's a
five point error among the white vote, she's got she's
gonna She's gonna win a re election. She's got this.
This is what I want to know, and I obviously
I can until election day, but part of something in
the pit of my stomach say they're wrong. They're not
(18:39):
hitting the white working class because they're unless the white
working class is so unbelievably frustrated with the economy that
they do not care about the socialism stuff and immigration
everything unles they've given up on everything and they only
came for the economy. And maybe that's possible. I'm not
saying it's not but unless that happened, I think they
might be doing the same mistake that they did in
(18:59):
Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota across the board. We're going
to bring on Zachary Diannini next, and he's gonna tell
me if I'm right wrong and what happened in the Midwest.
That's coming up to stay tuned. Zachary Deanini is a
data scientist who correctly predicts many things. Somebody who I
read constantly was on a road trip last Tuesday home
from Louisiana. I can been saying, what is Zach saying about
the primary? What's Zach same of the primary? Zach? When
(19:22):
everyone catches on to how smart you are, I hope
you don't forget about this podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, no, thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Ryan.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
That's how let's.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Talk about the polling error in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan
the week prior. I said before in the monologue, A
big problem is when polsters create the universe. They the
numbers coming out in this primary cycle are so high
it's kind of impossible to make that universe. And because
the election turner is so very high, both on the
Republicans side of Minnesota and the Democratic side everywhere. That's
(19:53):
what threw this off. Do you agree? What do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So when poles closed in Wisconsin, the apiece turned out
estimate in the Democratic primary was six hundred two thousand,
which was pretty normal based on past primary history. It
ended up at about eight hundred thousand, right, So what
we are seeing this year consistently is these high interest,
high turnout primaries. And going back to I remember I
(20:18):
came on and talked to you about mom Donnie's win
last November. That was the start of just a higher turnout,
more kind of interested in politics, democratic primary universe. And
what I'll actually say is in the last couple of weeks, though,
we were getting high turnout, but it wasn't a massive
(20:38):
youth turnout surge. It was better than a lot of
primaries we've seen in the past, and literally over half
of voters have been seniors for youth turnout, but it
still is just generally across all age groups people yeah,
or just more interested in primaries this cycle.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
That's very fascinating. If you look at Michigan and Wisconsin specifically,
the SAY aligned candidates l Saed and Pong underperformed big
time in the polls, absolutely is it okay? So this
is my reason and I want you to tell me
I'm wrong. Or when you look under the hood of
a lot of these polls, where they got it wrong
(21:17):
was they had the white vote much higher.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Levels of.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
The black vote they actually pretty much nailed, but the
white vote they got almost entirely wrong in both states.
How much did this affect the outcome? Not really understanding
white working class voters and polling.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Stille regarding these primary races. What you have to remember,
especially about a lot of the white voters you're talking about,
is they like both candidates. If you're scrolling on Twitter
or something like that and you're seeing online democratic discourse,
you're going to see pro Stevens, pro Crowley, PROALSI people right.
But the median Democratic primary voter ethan they tuned into
(21:53):
this race ten days ago. Maybe they're you know, very
upset with the establishment. They might be more likely to
vote for Hong or l Side again to you know,
because they're not happy with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies
and Trump winning. But then you have these really popular
governors who are pushing for you know, these candidates in
nursing them late, and you just get this very volatile
situation where people like both candidates. They like Whitmer, they
(22:16):
like Evers, they're you know, won't want someone who's passionate.
And I think what we saw in the end is
each time, yeah, the DSA candidate is really underperformed following
expectations with these white voters.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah. And I just have to imagine that because El
said and Hong, we're so caught up in personal stuff
that they came off as weird that And I know
this is just hypothetical. I don't know that sure, but
Hong saying I want to cancel Thanksgiving and that becoming
something so late in the election, it had to affect her.
(22:51):
I just I believe I had to. And else id
campaigning with Hassan Piker to a certain degree, it had
to affect him as coming up as a little to
personally weird for the average Michigan or wisconsinin could this
polling error among working class whites we saw it in
twenty twenty four to a degree, we saw it in
(23:12):
twenty sixteen, for sure. Could we see it in twenty
twenty six And I say that because in like Texas,
in that race, Paxxton has a fourteen point lead on
average among white voters in Texas, Trump one in by
thirty three, So the nineteen point swing is very aggressive
against the Republicans. Could there be a working class error
among these white voters that would take us day like
(23:33):
Texas or Ohio or Maine, that are just on the
cusp of flipping one way or the other. And if
there is that polling error that possibly is there, could
you deliver a bunch of close elections?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So I want to go back to that first part
of your kind of question there where you're talking about,
you know, like Hong and Elsaied, you know, potentially having
some candidate flaws that made them underperform, and specifically I
A lot of things are similar about these two elections,
ordering rust belt battleground states. A progressive candidate massively underperformed
polls in the race ended up basically tied. But there
(24:07):
are also some differences here. So Abdul al Sayad was
came out of a three way primary field where McMorrow
had some buzz. He edged her out for the non
establishment lane, and then he ended up beating Haley Stevens,
who benefited from seventy million dollars loan in apax spending,
Humor's endorsement, Whitmer's endorsement.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
You know, very good black vote in the end.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
With a lot of these very successful pro Obama mailers. Elseid, Yes,
he underperformed Poles, It's still a pretty damn good performance
in my mind, Like, that's a pretty impressive loss.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Had McMorrow dropped out earlier, I think.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
That's true, but he still would have lost by like
three points.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Maybe it's it's.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
You know, it's a meanwhile, I want to go. I'm
want to go to Wisconsin. Francesca Honks opposition she had,
she lost to a guy who dropped out, and then
you know, Mandela Barnes and lieutenant governor dropped out, and
then he came back. She was pulling ahead forty to eight.
It was complete disarrayed. There was no seventy million dollars
(25:10):
in boosting Crowley. It was just this like frantic Lake campaign,
and she got stuck at you know, thirty nine percent,
and he came from eight to forty and beat her.
So I think that that long as a candidate had
more shortcomings. And I'm not just saying that because she
lost barely and Elsi had won barely. I just think
(25:33):
that if the Wisconsin and National Democrats had co Le
Ester on Crowley sooner, he would have won by twenty five.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Like like Steven's quid it, Yeah, well, what do you
think about the white vote? If there's a whole error
in the white vote.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So I want to get yeah to the second part
of that. So generally I will often say things like
I don't think primaries have that much bearing on general elections.
I mean, there's so many examples. For instance, you know,
on the Republican side, Doug Mastriano and Carry Lake are
fantastic Republican primary candidates. They win races easily. They're poor
general election candidates. On the Democratic side, if Francesca Hong
(26:11):
had actually won by fifteen, I would still be sitting
here saying I think she's a very weak general election candidate.
But I do think there are some signs here about
white working class voters, because Francesca Hong and Abdullah Elsaia
did very poorly in a lot of areas that Bernie
Sanders beat Hillary Clinton and by twenty five. Right, this
(26:34):
is a different type of progressivism, a different new wave
of leftism, and it is really really good in these
high education urban centers. Basically, that's where Hong did well,
That's where Elsaia did well. It did poorly in some
working class, kind of white areas like Saint Clair County, Michigan,
(26:57):
where Bernie Sanders really did well with these types of
Democratic voters and alsaiaed and Hong didn't. And I actually
do think that could carry over to the general a
little bit. There's a little less interest for me.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Well, you're so right, and I never put it like this.
Bernie Sanders in twenty sixteen was saying things like open
borders as a coke pipe dream, right. He was really
not get caught up in as many culture war things.
It was really economics, economics, economics, it.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Was, it was. It was a bit pro gon. It
was before he was a bit progn he was before
woke one. It was a different right, right, right right.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
There is a certain type of foreign third world romanticism
that comes out of the Hung and the L. SAE
type in the sense that they talk about I mean else.
He just talked about football as a white supremacist sport.
That's what he wrote in his blog, I think, and
(27:58):
Hong said she wanted to cancel things which you know
may broke the.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Intnet I think, but I think the ut side thing
was like toxic masculinity, by.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
The way, but right right, it's toxic masculinity. I believe
he said it's also a structural whiteness. But maybe I'm wrong.
It might be just whatever, whatever the case is. You
know what I'm saying is is he's he's criticizing football
over his intellectualizing football from a progressive standpoint, which is
just enjoy a game and shut up, like kind of
(28:27):
like that's the average Joe Schmos, like I just want
to enjoy my Sunday. I don't care. And to a
certain extent, you know where he says on the Republican side,
the Vekramaswami who ran against a joke candidate and he
underperformed in all the white working class areas after his
cole comment that white people native born Americans are lazy
(28:50):
and his defensive h one B's and all the rest
of it. And I think there could be this whole
the narrative that's coming out of both sides of the
camp is you're criticizing Americans too much and your economic
message is getting lost. Hong brought talking about sewer socialism,
which was from the nineteen ten It's about building sewers
(29:10):
and that socialism, but it didn't translate because it got
all caught up in culture war stuff and woke to
or whatever that is. I wanted to ask one other
quick question the black turnout. Black turn out was pretty solid,
very solidly against the DSA Aligan cannets in both Michigan
and Wisconsin. And it wasn't super faarable. I don't know
(29:31):
of Minnesota, but it was. It was very It was
very much against it in miscontonin Minnesota, Wisconsin. If the
black turnout drops nationally one percent, Republicans have a very
good chance of winning, right if it goes for thirteen
twelve percent, that's the case in twenty sixteen and in
twenty twenty four. What does intensity in the black vote
look like this time in the primaries? Are black voters
(29:52):
turning out of high members? They are?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
They're on fire. So there's a really good piece lie.
A fellow at vote Hub named Ellis bat wrote about this.
The Guardian also wrote an article which is kind of
about his piece, and he was analyzing black turnout and
a lot of these Southern primaries, and again I want
to say, this is Southern primaries on the backdrop of
the VRA being overturned, and right, I don't know how
(30:15):
that will translate to twenty twenty six November. I don't
want to say, oh, because South Carolina black turnout was
really strong two weeks after the VRA was gutted, then
you know, Detroit turnout's going to be great for elseheya
this November. Right, I think that's a bit of a stretch.
But if there's any indicator from primaries, black turnout is
(30:35):
much more energized than it was in twenty twenty four,
Black turnout was pretty bad in twenty twenty four, and
then even worse for Bob Casey.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
The undervote was bad too.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
You know, a lot of black voters came out and
filled in one race in twenty twenty four in Philadelphia.
So yeah, and I don't think those people are coming
out to vote in the midterms. Right, If you didn't
even fill in the bubble in twenty twenty four, I
don't think you're coming out just for Senate race twenty
twenty six or something. But that being said, I think
(31:05):
that broadly just Democrats in general are very energized right now.
When we're talking about a D plus seven, a deplus
state environment, what that looks like The silver lining for
Republicans is I do think that D plus seven, D
plus eight looks like Democrats running up the score in
cities like they did in twenty twenty and not twenty
(31:25):
twenty four. And I'm sorry to Democrats. It doesn't help
you when the House or Senate, but you know, fifty
thousand more votes in the bronx, it doesn't really help.
So you know, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, no, And I'm glad you brought the bronx because
what does this also say about the limitations of DSA
aligned candidates? And I want to cave it with two
different ways DSA versus Bernie. Bernie did not campaign for Hong,
he did campaign for l said. Does it show a
limitation of these far left progressives winning outside of major
(31:58):
cities or is there not enough data to really work with?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So I think the big limitation here for the kind
of progressive even DSA line candidates is they struggle more
in battleground states because the Democratic electorate is obsessed with electability.
They're obsessed with electability. We saw in Iowa Josh Turik
and then easily dispatched Zach Walls. You know, Elizabeth Warren
(32:22):
backed progressive. I think a lot of Democrats in Iowa
believe strongly that Josh Turrek has a better chance to
flip the state blue. In Michigan and Wisconsin, we had
that backdrop on these races, especially with Hong. I think
the Thanksgiving thing, man, I think Republicans went too hard
on Hong in that last week. In retrospect, I think,
(32:43):
you know, the Republican media wing is probably kicking itself
for spreading all that stuff out because I think it
got Democrats really scared that she was attackable and she
was going to lose. You talked about Minnesota early. There's
no way that Peggy Flanagan is going to lose Minnesota
in a good year. There's no election debility backdrop. It
doesn't matter if Angie Craig is five points stronger than
(33:04):
Peggy Flanagan, Flanagan will be fine, and Flanagan won. So
I mean, I think there are a lot of Democrats
who really wish they could vote for Francesca Hong and
have her become their governor. The Democratic primary electorate is
very far left and very upset at the establishment. Right now,
I think they were worried if they voted for Hong
that Tom Tiffany would become their governor.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Right No. I said this in another show that the
Democratic electorate is way savvier than they have been previously. Like, wait,
not all of them. Obviously, some are just die in
the wall, like left wingers, and they'll vote for any
left wing person. And maybe something will set out the
election in November, but I don't think it's going to
be very many people. Black voters are especially shrew And
(33:45):
I'll tell you something that I never I talked to
a Democratic consultant and activist about two months ago and
I said, who do you want for November? And she said,
anyone but a woman? And this was a woman saying this,
and she's like, because they can't win, and I just
want to win. And I and this is a person
who would have gave her own blood to get Kamala
or Hillary elected. So I think that this is a
(34:06):
I think that the Democrats are being extremely shrewd. I
think that will carry on to twenty twenty eight Democratic primary.
And I think and also last point, the difference everyone
keeps all the Republicans going to say, I mean, how
do we come out of this election and save ourselves?
And my only point I keep saying is if we
go if it's a deep plus eight year or a
(34:27):
deep plus five year, you can't make it a Republican year.
But that one percent national will change a US center
ray somewhere.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
So first, first, I'd love to talk about the woman things,
just because I love making this point. So in the
twenty twenty four election, I believe it is twelve out
of the thirteen best performing Democratic US House candidates weren't
white men. So I think there's this idea I would
know what's electable, what type of Democrats are electable, and
(34:58):
a lot of people jump to white men. I've heard
that from from consultants, you know, people inside the party,
at least at the US House level. That's not true
at all. I actually spoke with Christine McDonald rivett from
the Tri Cities in Michigan earlier today on the Argument podcast.
She I believe had the highest best performance score out
of any person in any Democrat in any battleground district
(35:20):
in twenty twenty four. Right, she's a one. I just
have to make that point, because it's one of my
favorite points to make. You know, Yeah, electability isn't about
you know, someone's rice or sex. It's about you know,
what they say, how they connect with voters, et cetera.
So on the second point, you said, so Republicans in
twenty twenty four had a very good year, right, They
won the presidency, they won the House, and they got
(35:42):
fifty three Senate seats, not fifty one, not fifty two.
Republicans gave himself a nice buffer, and the map in
twenty twenty six is worse for Republicans than twenty eighteen.
In twenty eighteen, the Democrats had to win states, you know,
at to win in states like Indiana, Missouri, note the
North Dakota. Those are really Republican states R plus twenty
(36:03):
or more. Now it's down to R plus twelve, the
R plus fourteen states for the tipping point of the
Senate still a really good map for Republicans. That's difficult, right,
but it's a little bit more achievable to the point
where D plus seven or D plus eight. Environment could
be the difference here. So what I would what I
would say is if I'm a Republican, what I am
(36:24):
hoping for in November is just strong enough turnout in
these battleground states even if you don't get it nationally.
What we see in the past in these wave years
is Republicans in a place like Oregon or you know,
Alabama that believe they don't have that much to vote
for get really depressed turnout. Because Republicans overall are just
(36:48):
a little depressed right now and they're propensity to turn out.
But in these states like Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, they
they turn out because they know there's something big on
the line.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yep, and Texas and Maine are the other big ones.
So I Zach you're brilliant where people go to read
more about your stuff, what you work on and what
you say, because I think everyone should read you well.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
On the head of data science at vot hub. Votehub
is a non parget partisan organization. You can find us
a lot on x right now. Our midterms forecast is
out on votube dot com if you want to go
and see that at updates every day. Me personally, I'm
on exit at Zachary Danini. My first name Zachary, and
my lovely Italian last name, which a bunch of ends
in valves.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And Zach, of course is the lastiest looking guy I've
ever met before. Zach, thank you so much for going
this podcast. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Thank you very much driving me on.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Now it's time for the Ask Me Anything segment. If
you want a part of the Ask Me Anything segment
only Ryan at Numbers Gamepodcast dot com. That's Ryan at
numbers pull our Numbers gamepodcast dot com. First question comes
from Michael. He says, if you do a daily show,
I'd watch every day. Michael, I really, I'm not joking,
and I said, I really appreciate that, like I really
appreciate you. I'm not kidding because I but before this podcast,
(38:07):
I did not get daily outreach saying that people liked
to hear me talk at all. Ever you write, I
get like between eight to ten gup fundraising text every day.
I've manually typed stop and each one confirms I've unsubscribed.
But every day new show up, including for candidates I've
never supported, or once saying they'll stop texting me, but
the link is to a donation page. Are many people
(38:28):
complaining about this? It just can't be me. Am I
going to have to keep texting one stop until November. Okay,
here's what happened, Michael, I expland I'll expecd sause I run.
I run one of these companies. I do these text messaging.
What happened is, I don't text what we do fundraising
for candidates. What happens is is when you donate to
a candidate, you're on their list, their donor list. And
the way that it works is this. If you get
a solicitation from a text message for a candidate you've
(38:50):
never seen before, and you give them a dollar, ninety
to ninety five percent of that dollar goes to the
company or the person who owns the list. So I
own a list from the seventeen seventy six Project pack.
My list is over one hundred thousand memes. I have
never given it out to rent ever I can, but
I will never do because I love my donors. I
don't want to annoy them. I don't want them to
stop giving to me. So we're my pack for the
(39:12):
school board elections. But what happens is if I were
to do that and say, all right, everyone, it's a
free for all, take my list, I would get ninety
five percent ninety ninety five percent of every dollar that
was fund raised from that initial message, and then once
you're on their house file, every and every dollar afterwards,
the candidate gets ninety to ninety five percent. So just
an asterisk if you want to do that, if you
(39:33):
want to, if you want to, if you want to donate,
just go on their website directly. Don't through the text
messaging like that would actually hurt the candidate. What I
would suggest to you is stop pressing stop, because what
you're doing with pressing stop is you're engaging. If they
believe the line is dead, that you don't have the
phone anymore, you're the number, you don't, you don't whatever
they get you passed away. I'm not saying wishing that,
(39:56):
but if they believe that you're not engaging anymore, eventually,
over time they will actually not message you. If you
press stop, it means that they know that you are
still engaged in that phone line. So just don't do anything.
It will die off and one of the candids you
support over time soldier list. I mean, I hate to
say it like that, but they did. Okay, you're other questions.
(40:17):
By the way, you said, everyone on the right correctly
hates Senator John Curtis, Senator from Utah, which is true.
John Curtis is terrible. Apparently both Trump and the utahgup
Endors's opponent trend stags. If he still won. How is
as possible? So I did look this up for you
because I read this question. Curtis is terrible on the issues,
is wag and moderate for such a conservative state. Utah
(40:37):
is a very interesting beast within itself. The Mormon Church
plays a very big role in politics in Utah. Utah's
population does not like crude people. It's why Trump performs
pretty poorly in Utah, believe it or not, despite winning,
the state does and performs super well for a Republican.
They outperform him. What I think happened was Curtis Curtis
(41:00):
was running on you to protecting Utah's environment and working
across party lines, and that is very popular and appealing
to a population that like niceness. Mormons do like at
least showing them nice, and Mormons are a nice I'm
not I love my Mormon listeners. Mormons are very nice
and they like the appeal of nice and Trent the
Trent's stake their other Republican the Trumpetwars candidate was talking
(41:22):
about the election of being stolen, and I think it
rubbed too many people the wrong way. That's what I think.
And I asked people from Utah and that's what they
told me. So I'm gonna say that is yes. Next
question comes from Jay, longtime listener, but it's a numbers game.
I have a question. I suspect you be a sharper
answer to anyone else. I moved from my family from
New Hampshire to Sarasota last year, so I've lived inside
two very different versions of state level conservatism. New Hampshire's libertarian,
(41:44):
infected and allergic to spending. But my read is that
the pre Trump gepiece still holds most of the power there,
which caps how far it can move. Florida is more
muscular and institutional five years out. Which state do you
think is actually more conservative? And does New Hampshire's in
migration for masses eventually flipped the state. That is a
great question. The Massachusetts migration is kind of already flip
(42:05):
the state. I mean, remember New Hampshire only had elected
Republicans both at the state level and at the federal level.
But the people moving from Massachusetts don't like taxes either,
so it's keeping them. They're voting Republican in local government,
even though they're voting for Democrat for federal governments. Like
they do want abortion, they don't want taxes. New Hampshire
has a very republican state government and Kelley Ayot's the
(42:28):
government republican governor. What I think the difference is because
New Hampshire has a part time legislature. The state senators
and State House members are paid either one or two
hundred dollars per year, I forget which one it is.
And there are four hundred members of the New Hampshire
State House, which is like one for every four thousand people.
(42:49):
It's very difficult. They are lobbying infrastructure, and that is
a good thing Florida. Having dealt a little bit with
Florida politics, the lobbying in the Florida legislature and among
Florida governor is so intense. This is why Dessanta's not
that he didn't get anything done in his first term,
but it was a lot of those COVID base and
(43:10):
rightfully so. But if you look at the legislative agenda
for the conservative victories, a lot of them come in
the second term. Because Desanta's really needed to spend an
entire term getting his people in the legislature. He campaigned
very aggressively down ballot because they were holding up immigration stuff,
they were holding up tech stuff, they were holding up
I mean, a lot of the things that he wanted
(43:30):
to do he really couldn't do under the existing legislature.
And that's the problem in Florida. The Florida the tourism industry,
the agricultural lobby, all these people really hold up a
lot of things from getting done, which is why I
think New Hampshire could go further if the population was there.
The population's not there. I think the Florida people want
(43:52):
more but can't get it because the government's different. That's
what I think. But they have Also, New Hampshire does
not have as strong a governor as Florida. As Florida
had the very strong governors. Why Dessanders was able to
do so much. So we'll see how that continues, depending
on if Fire and Donald, why I believe will probably
be the next governor, how he does and how he
uses the strength of the governorship. Last question, which is
(44:12):
not really a question, it is a comment. It comes
from Paul, but a previous episode, Paul writes, love your Show.
I heard a comment on Wednesday's podcast about a candidate
from western North Carolina, the Senate candidate who's running as
a Republican that his call to end FEMA during Hurricane
Helene recovered for FEMA was purposely stealing and awarding food
and supplies brought by in by volunteers. They were blocking
(44:33):
rescue efforts. They reached a point where the sheriffs were
ordered to arrest FEMA agents on site and were called
blocking rescue efforts by the Democrat. Yes, you heard the
right governor. FEMA was also ordered to skip any house
with a Trump sign. I don't know if that's true,
but I will take your word for it. The latter
event led to trump on led Trump to fire several
FEMA staff. There are a ton of news articles on
(44:55):
the subject. No reason to provide lengths. Our expaccuriance in
eastern North Carolina is identical. FEMA I showed up about
ten to twenty days after the hurricane and left local
immediate rescue efforts was largely completed. They pay seven hundred
and fifty dollars cash anyone with no insurance, no under insured,
no waiting whatever. Okay, not whatever, but it's it's going on.
(45:15):
A word is out. Never talked to FEMA. Same story
in Flora and Tennessee and Georgia. Okay, I understand what
you're saying. And I so what I said was the
Republican Michael Watley said he wanted to end FEMA and
move all rescue stuff to a state program. And I
said it was bad for Wattley because he'd said want
to end FEMA. I'm not defending the institution of FEMA,
(45:36):
and maybe I should have been a little more specific
about that. I'm not saying FEMA is a great institution.
I'm not saying that FEMA does everything perfectly. That's not
the point. The point is he said abolish FEMA in
the audio tape, and that someone had taped him secretly
saying that. And the problem that with that is that
you can splice it. Not have the power. He says,
(45:57):
let's bring the money and give it to the states
for emergencies. Just splice it and say the Democrats and
say this man wants to end FEMA, and you hear
nothing else about the recovery. How do you said, I'm
for a program to and I not said any about
ending FEMA, but saying, you know, I'm really looking forward
to trying to get a state to give more money
to the states, and not to ending it. It would
(46:19):
have been safer. So I'm not defending and it's not
people who experience hurricane and disaster at lease with FEMA.
I live in Louisiana half the year. Everyone I know
he lived through a hurricane Katrina. They all have horror stories.
I'm not defending them as an institution, but people who
think about FEMA but never experience them have very high
opinions about them. So when you're being secretly taped, which
(46:42):
I know you didn't know, you need to be very
careful with your words. And that was my part, is
that people can slice that up and misinterpret it to
deceive voters ahead of November. That was the point. That
was what I was saying. Sorry, I needed that clarification.
Thank you for holding me up to it. I'm gladly
willing to explain myself if you guys have an issue
(47:02):
with something I said. Thank you so much for listening
this episode. If you like this podcast, please like and
subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, and on YouTube
and If you have time, give me a five star review.
It really helps. Talk to you guys on Monday. Have
a great weekend.
Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Ryan Grodski. Thank
you guys for being here. Okay, we had primary elections
on Tuesday, and I'm sure everyone kind of heard something
about them. I wanted to talk about it, but the
results didn't come until early Wednesday morning, and we had
to record the podcast before then, so didn't get to
do for Wednesday's episode. I want to actually talk about
it now, and I actually did one better because we
(00:22):
had to wait. I have the brilliant data scientist Zachary
Denini on with me. If you've listened to the show before,
you know him. He's so so smart. He actually this
is how bright he is. He in the Michigan primary
the week before, not only did he get the percentages
about right, like to the zero dot, he actually got
the total number of votes correct. I mean, he's brilliant.
(00:42):
So we're going to talk about how this primary is
shaken out, why the polls were so wrong, and what
it really means for November. But before we do, let
me give a rundown of what happened Tuesday nationwide. Because
I know a lot of people are busy, they're not
all paying attention to every election. I'm going to hit
the most important elections state by state, because there were
elections held in Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Carolina, and Alabama.
(01:06):
And here's everything you should know. In Vermont. Incumbent Republican
Governor Phil Scott is very likely to win his sixth term,
but the election for Lieutenant governor is really where the
battle is. Vermont, believe or not, has a Republican governor
and lieutenant governor. It's the first time that's happened since
twenty ten. And twenty twenty four, the lieutenant governor unseated
(01:26):
a progressive for the seat of the lieutenant governor. Obviously
they're both moderates, some would say liberal, but it's Vermont,
so take what you can get. Republican Lieutenant Governor John
Rogers defeated the progressive challenger in twenty twenty four, winning
forty six percent of the vote. Former Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray,
who left the seat back in twenty twenty two, won
(01:47):
her primary to take on the seat. We'll try to
win the seat again. She won sixty one percent. It's
the most competitive race in the state that you should
know about. Very often lieutenant governor becomes the governor So
if you know, for whatever reason, Phil Scott eventually not
for whatever reason, eventually he will retire. When he retires,
it will be important to have a Republican lieutenant governor,
(02:09):
and really getting John Rodgers a second term will matter
how aggressively Phil Scott ken campaign successfully for Republicans down ballot.
He did it before in twenty twenty four. Believe it
or not, Vermont had a red wave in twenty twenty
four because Phil Scott was so incredibly aggressive at making
sure Republicans were like down ballid. So we'll see in
Vermont if that says two that holds over. In Connecticut,
(02:30):
incumbent Governor Ned Lamont defeated a progressive challenger, winning sixty
seven percent of the vote. He will take on former
guests of this show, Ryan Fasio in November. But the
most shocking part of it was a seventy eight year
old incumbent congress named John Larson. He won his first
seat back in nineteen ninety eight and he's run for
office almost every two years since nineteen eighty two. Was
(02:52):
defeated by Luke Bronnan. He is the former mayor of Hartford, Connecticut.
I think this is one of those things where Braunin
had expected Larson the congressman to retire sometimes in twenty
twenty two or twenty twenty four, he didn't run for
reelection as mayor. He's kind of been hanging out, waiting
and waiting, and he just finally said, Okay, the weight's over,
I'm going to challenge you, and he beat him. Larson
(03:14):
is the eleventh incumbent House member to lose a primary
this year. That is the highest amount in a non
redistricting year. So not years that end with like you
know two, like twenty twenty two or twenty twelve, when
all the seats are changed. The highest amount in a
non redistricting year since nineteen seventy. By the way, we
still have more seats. Let's see if anything happens in Florida.
(03:36):
Let's se if anything happens in you know, a couple
of these other states. But that is really wild. In
twenty twenty four, only four congressmen in come and congressman
lost in a primary. So that's a big, big thing.
And I just about Larson. Like to quote Barber Streisan,
sometimes people stay too long at the fair, like he
should have retired. You've been running since nineteen eighty two.
(03:58):
That is five years before I was born. Like, at
some point, don't you just want to go spend time
with the grandkids or pick up a hobby. I don't know.
Over in Alabama, Republican Ret Marquise became the nominee to
take on incumbent Democrat House Member Chamari Figures. This is
the seat that was a Republican seat. The courts turned
it into a Democrat seat. Then the courts, the Supreme
(04:19):
Court overturned that. The courts reached the state legislator redrew
it into a more Republican seat. It's still fairly competitive.
It's one of the seats that is the most competitive
going into November. So Ret Marquees will be the Republican
nominee against Shermari Figures. Over in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham's
sister Darlene Graham. She came in first place, winning thirty
(04:41):
three percent of the vote. She obviously had the Trump endorsement,
and she had the Graham Institution, Graham Inc. Or whatever.
She had that organization behind her. She will go into
a run of election with Congress and Ralph Norman. Norman
has just run for governor where He came in third
place during that election, but he built up a bit
of a statewide name recognition. He was very dominant in
(05:04):
his congressional district, which includes Greenville and rock Hill, which
are two fairly large cities down in South Carolina. That's
how he kind of won. He didn't really come in
second place many places outside of the area that touches
the congressional district. Though. I think he'll have a tough
time beating her, but it will be such a very
low turnout election because it's a runoff special. I mean,
(05:28):
I don't even know how many people will go vote
for that, but it will be such a low turnout
that maybe he can do it, but it'll be very,
very tough. It wasn't super close, and once again, had
he come in second in a lot of different parts
of the state, I would say he has a chance,
but it really was just dominated by his congressional district.
Now here's where things get very interesting. Over in Minnesota.
(05:48):
Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. She is certifiably crazy. She defeated
Congressman and Ange Craig the Democratic in the Democratic primary
for Senate. She won fifty nine two thirty nine Flanagan
is she's she's she's wild. I mean, she's the one
who wears the T shirt saying protect trans kids with
a knife across it. She benefited tremendously from the fact
(06:12):
that Francesca Hung, who I will get to in a second,
was running because Francesca was off the charts, so because
other people were crazier, she kind of slipped in. What's
interesting about Peggy Flanagan, though, was the polls had it
as a tight race. Survey USA, which is one of
the premier pollsters in Minnesota, said that it was a
razor thin toss up race. Flanagin wiped the floor of
(06:36):
her She won by twenty points. The other race in
Minnesota that people said was going to be completely lopsided,
where it was going to be one person winning that
losing was Mike Lindell that my pillow CEO is running
for governor of Minnesota. He lost to Lisa Damouth. Now
he was endorsed by Trump. Obviously, everyone in Republican politics,
(06:57):
certainly every and over the age of forty, knows who
Mike Lindella is at this point, big supporter of the president,
big deny of the twenty twenty election. He's kind of
you know, obviously, and he has ever watched any conservative
news program, has probably seen a my Pillow commercial. But nonetheless,
and yet still Lindell had a lot of negative opinions
of him, even within Republican circles, and polls had him
(07:20):
finishing by a wide margin in first place, and he
ended up losing by to a distant second place, losing
by eleven points. It was a twenty something point swing
between what the polls are saying and what the election
was saying, just like Peggy Flanagan. And now let's talk
about the race that everybody talked about. The governor of Wisconsin.
(07:40):
The DSA back Francesca hung lost to Milwaukee County executive
by less than four thousand votes up out of almost
eight hundred thousand casts. This is after a poll after
a poll after poll show that she was going to
win by more than twenty points. I mean, one of
the other candidates dropped out because it said, why would
I run? Francesca is going to win this race, which
(08:04):
is crazy because who knows what would have happened had
he stayed into the race. He would have actually been
the spoiler Canada. Had he stayed in the race because
he was like, no, there's no way anyone can be Francesca.
She is just, you know, gonna dominate. And Francesca was crazy.
She's the one who didn't wanted to cancel Thanksgiving, she
hated Valentine's Day, she didn't like Christmas, she didn't like
(08:24):
Fourth of July, and her old tweets have been circulating
and since she lost, and like, it's just very millennial
generation to share things on social media. I want to
give a helpful tip as a consultant to anyone who
wants to run for office one day, do a clean
wipe of your social media before you run for office.
(08:48):
Just clear everything before you and now and so before
anything happens. Because Francesca had tweets up there that were like,
I'm so glad I didn't shave my legs tonight. People
were posting that. Another one said I was once I'm
going to be balls deep in a glass of bourbon.
I mean, like I was, like, it was funny, it
was very funny. But if you're already considered unhinged and
(09:13):
crazy and you have and you have a lot of
those things out there, it doesn't help your gase. If
you were you know, if Mitt Romney had a tweet
being like something you know, crazy and wild, or like
saying like, you know, one of my sons sucks at baseball?
Obviously did'en have twitter when when his son was younger?
But whatever, People would have forgiven him because he's so
straight laced. But when you seem nuts, when you say
(09:34):
things crazy on a regular basis and then you have
tweets like that, it only kind of reinforces why people
think you're nuts. So I want to ask the question
and pose the question, why did Poles get it so
wrong between what they thought voters were going to do
in both the Republican and Democratic primary in Minnesota, but
(09:55):
the Democratic primaries everywhere because remember this, the Poles were
off by double digits in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and just so
we could go over in Michigan where alb Dul said
was supposed to win by fifteen points and he won
by a single point. So here's I've been thinking long
and hard about this, and I have two reasons. One
that's good for Democrats and one that's good for Republicans.
One that's good for Democrats. Is this a big part
(10:17):
of polling when you are creating any kind of campaign.
If you're a campaign manager, and I've been a campaign
manager many times, the first thing you do is you
build a target universe. You say, Okay, my guy is
running for mayor. One hundred thousand people will run forte
vote for mayor. Three people are running. I need to
secure forty two thousand votes and I will absolutely get
(10:38):
the enough plurality to win this election. And you build
your entire campaign over finding those forty two thousand voters,
and you reach obviously more. You try to reach as
many as possible, but you always have to get You
have to id the forty two thousand that will vote
for you. That's kind of how you build that campaign.
Polls are no different. They say, let's look at a
likely voter registration base. Let's say there's going to be
(11:00):
you know, a million people who vote, and so I'm
going to pull estimates based upon what percentages of wh
groups I think are going to vote.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
There.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Part of the problem that polsters and these Democratic primaries
are having is that voter turnout is explosive. I mean,
the numbers are really sky high in all these primaries,
and I think part of the problem for polsters is
you're building universes that don't exist because the numbers are
too high. And I'll give you a perfect example. In
(11:28):
the Wisconsin governor's primary. Almost over seven hundred and ninety
one thousand people voted this time in twenty twenty six.
In twenty twenty two, there was an incumbent governor who
had a challenger. It was four hundred and sixty three thousand,
and the competitive election in twenty eighteen, which was a
Democratic year, it was five hundred and thirty eight thousand.
(11:49):
So when from five hundred and thirty eight thousand to
seven hundred and ninety one thousand, that's a remarkable, huge
increase of close to forty percent. I don't thing that
they modeled that out correctly. Over in Michigan, a very
similar thing happened in twenty twenty six this election last week.
One point five to three million people voted in that
(12:11):
Michigan primary. In the semi competitive election in twenty twenty four,
where at least Slockin, who's now a Senator, was running,
there was only nine hundred and thirty three thousand. Michigan
also was a problem where I went back up to
twenty twelve, there was a there's not been a primary
since before twenty twelve. When Gary Peters, the incumbent senator,
(12:31):
ran his primary, he was unopposed. So no election in
Michigan has ever had for a primary for the US
Senate has ever had more than one point one million
votes in it. This one had one point five million.
This is dramatic. And most, by the way, had seven
hundred thousand, five hundred thousand. No one came close to
one point five million. Democratic enthusiasm is off the chart,
(12:56):
and it's intent and it's real. It's not fake. It's
not the Internet. It's not something to raw raw Democratic support.
People need to understand that. So it makes it very
hard for polsters. But that is good for Democrats. What
is the good news for Republicans?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Then?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
The good news for Republicans is if you look under
the hood at most of these polls and you see
which is the demographics they were really getting wrong. The
polsters nailed the black vote being against the DSA candids.
We've seen that in poll up to poll. What they
got wrong was the white vote. They estimated the white
vote that el said would win the white vote by
big margins, and they estimated that Francesca hung would get
(13:31):
around forty five percent of the white vote. She ended
up with thirty nine percent. I don't think she got there.
I mean, it's hard because there's no real exit polls
to work with. We're really looking at precinct data. It
reminds me of the twenty twenty four pole over in Iowa.
Member of the famous Seltzer poll where it had Harris
beating Trump in Iowa. They said Seltzer said that she
(13:53):
was going to beat Trump in Iowa because Harris was
at a thirty five point lead among senior citizen women
and a two point lead among senior citizen men. Think
about that, senior citizen women in Iowa overwhelmingly white, like
ninety eight percent, overwhelmingly Christian, overwhelmingly evangelical, not a majority,
(14:13):
but a large plurality or evangelical white evangelicals. This is
not the crowd that would gravitate towards Kamala. In the end,
what I think happened was the people, the elderly people,
the people for sixty five who love MSNBC and CNN.
They're answering their phones at higher levels than normal because
(14:36):
in that exit polse in the Iowa's case, the exitpoles.
Harris won the senior citizen women vote by seven points.
He Trump won the senior citizen men vote by thirteen points,
so massive twenty point discrepancies in both those cases by
the best polster. Ever, she wasn't picking up on the
fact that white progressives are answering the phone in greater
(14:59):
frequency than other, you know, working class white people. I
am from a working class white family. If my grandfather
got a call from a stranger, he'd tell them, go
after yourself. I'm not telling you anything, so you could
sign me up for jury duty or something like that.
I mean, he would say something like that, they're not
going to answer a poll. My father, who loves Fox News,
watches it religiously, calls me to tell me who was
(15:21):
on this week. He does not answer poles. He tells
me he gets calls for poles and he hangs up
on the phone them you're not being heard. Then that's
that's fine. And the thing is among white progressives, some
view themselves as independent, some view themselves some don't have
college degrees. They managed to meet their way in a
general population. So that's why the polls. I think these
(15:42):
exit poles are really off. If you look at the
counties in Wisconsin. Remember polls ask mely the Homo win
between forty and forty four percent of the white vote.
I didn't have we don't have exit poles. But I
looked at the whitest counties in the states. To count County,
like Pepin County, it's a rural county, ninety eight percent white.
She got thirty one percent of the vote. Buffalo County
(16:04):
ninety seven percent white. She got thirty percent of the vote.
Lafayette County ninety seven percent white, she got twenty nine
percent of the vote. Green County ninety seven percent white,
she got thirty three percent of the vote. I don't
think she hit those that forty percent number, even though
she did very very well in like Milwaukee, among white
progressive areas, I don't think there was enough because she
lost the rules almost everywhere she goes. Samely with Lsaeed.
(16:27):
The New York Times created this blueprint of precinct data,
especially in Wayne County, which is home of Detroit and
outside of the super Muslim areas. In Wayne County, he
lost almost every other white majority precinct in the county.
I don't think he hit there, and he by the
way poles were saying. Emerson said that he was going
(16:47):
to win the white vote by by thirty points and
Detroit News said he was going to win by twelve points.
There's no way l said won either the white vot
by thirty or twelve points, even with the overwhelming Muslim vote.
I think that that is having a very important problem
with the Democratic primary polls. I think it's also having
(17:10):
a very important problem possibly with the general election polls.
I am not you guys know, I tell the truth.
I'm not cheerleading one side of the other. I mean
I am, but I'm living in the real world. I've
been talking about inflation and the economy and why it's
bad for Republicans, and I am not sugarcoating anything. I'm
trying to be as a middle of the road knowing
(17:32):
i'm a partisan as possible to give you guys the facts.
There could be a very real case, as we saw
in twenty sixteen, as we saw in twenty as we
saw in twenty twenty four, that the polls are undersampling
white working class people and that is going to affect
races like in Texas where James tall Rico is beating
(17:53):
Cam pax in all of these poles, not by much,
by a few points here and there. Because these polls
are finding that Ken Paxon is only winning the white
vote by fourteen points, a population that Trump won by
thirty three points. You see what I'm saying. If this
is an error, and it's an error across the board
in other polling, how does that impact Texas, Ohio, Maine, Iowa.
(18:18):
These are important questions because all these races are on
a razor thin margin. Fox New's just had Susan Collins
down by only two points. In me, if there's a
five point error among the white vote, she's got she's
gonna She's gonna win a re election. She's got this.
This is what I want to know, and I obviously
I can until election day, but part of something in
the pit of my stomach say they're wrong. They're not
(18:39):
hitting the white working class because they're unless the white
working class is so unbelievably frustrated with the economy that
they do not care about the socialism stuff and immigration
everything unles they've given up on everything and they only
came for the economy. And maybe that's possible. I'm not
saying it's not but unless that happened, I think they
might be doing the same mistake that they did in
(18:59):
Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota across the board. We're going
to bring on Zachary Diannini next, and he's gonna tell
me if I'm right wrong and what happened in the Midwest.
That's coming up to stay tuned. Zachary Deanini is a
data scientist who correctly predicts many things. Somebody who I
read constantly was on a road trip last Tuesday home
from Louisiana. I can been saying, what is Zach saying about
the primary? What's Zach same of the primary? Zach? When
(19:22):
everyone catches on to how smart you are, I hope
you don't forget about this podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, no, thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Ryan.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
That's how let's.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Talk about the polling error in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan
the week prior. I said before in the monologue, A
big problem is when polsters create the universe. They the
numbers coming out in this primary cycle are so high
it's kind of impossible to make that universe. And because
the election turner is so very high, both on the
Republicans side of Minnesota and the Democratic side everywhere. That's
(19:53):
what threw this off. Do you agree? What do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So when poles closed in Wisconsin, the apiece turned out
estimate in the Democratic primary was six hundred two thousand,
which was pretty normal based on past primary history. It
ended up at about eight hundred thousand, right, So what
we are seeing this year consistently is these high interest,
high turnout primaries. And going back to I remember I
(20:18):
came on and talked to you about mom Donnie's win
last November. That was the start of just a higher turnout,
more kind of interested in politics, democratic primary universe. And
what I'll actually say is in the last couple of weeks, though,
we were getting high turnout, but it wasn't a massive
(20:38):
youth turnout surge. It was better than a lot of
primaries we've seen in the past, and literally over half
of voters have been seniors for youth turnout, but it
still is just generally across all age groups people yeah,
or just more interested in primaries this cycle.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
That's very fascinating. If you look at Michigan and Wisconsin specifically,
the SAY aligned candidates l Saed and Pong underperformed big
time in the polls, absolutely is it okay? So this
is my reason and I want you to tell me
I'm wrong. Or when you look under the hood of
a lot of these polls, where they got it wrong
(21:17):
was they had the white vote much higher.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Levels of.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
The black vote they actually pretty much nailed, but the
white vote they got almost entirely wrong in both states.
How much did this affect the outcome? Not really understanding
white working class voters and polling.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Stille regarding these primary races. What you have to remember,
especially about a lot of the white voters you're talking about,
is they like both candidates. If you're scrolling on Twitter
or something like that and you're seeing online democratic discourse,
you're going to see pro Stevens, pro Crowley, PROALSI people right.
But the median Democratic primary voter ethan they tuned into
(21:53):
this race ten days ago. Maybe they're you know, very
upset with the establishment. They might be more likely to
vote for Hong or l Side again to you know,
because they're not happy with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies
and Trump winning. But then you have these really popular
governors who are pushing for you know, these candidates in
nursing them late, and you just get this very volatile
situation where people like both candidates. They like Whitmer, they
(22:16):
like Evers, they're you know, won't want someone who's passionate.
And I think what we saw in the end is
each time, yeah, the DSA candidate is really underperformed following
expectations with these white voters.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah. And I just have to imagine that because El
said and Hong, we're so caught up in personal stuff
that they came off as weird that And I know
this is just hypothetical. I don't know that sure, but
Hong saying I want to cancel Thanksgiving and that becoming
something so late in the election, it had to affect her.
(22:51):
I just I believe I had to. And else id
campaigning with Hassan Piker to a certain degree, it had
to affect him as coming up as a little to
personally weird for the average Michigan or wisconsinin could this
polling error among working class whites we saw it in
twenty twenty four to a degree, we saw it in
(23:12):
twenty sixteen, for sure. Could we see it in twenty
twenty six And I say that because in like Texas,
in that race, Paxxton has a fourteen point lead on
average among white voters in Texas, Trump one in by
thirty three, So the nineteen point swing is very aggressive
against the Republicans. Could there be a working class error
among these white voters that would take us day like
(23:33):
Texas or Ohio or Maine, that are just on the
cusp of flipping one way or the other. And if
there is that polling error that possibly is there, could
you deliver a bunch of close elections?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So I want to go back to that first part
of your kind of question there where you're talking about,
you know, like Hong and Elsaied, you know, potentially having
some candidate flaws that made them underperform, and specifically I
A lot of things are similar about these two elections,
ordering rust belt battleground states. A progressive candidate massively underperformed
polls in the race ended up basically tied. But there
(24:07):
are also some differences here. So Abdul al Sayad was
came out of a three way primary field where McMorrow
had some buzz. He edged her out for the non
establishment lane, and then he ended up beating Haley Stevens,
who benefited from seventy million dollars loan in apax spending,
Humor's endorsement, Whitmer's endorsement.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
You know, very good black vote in the end.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
With a lot of these very successful pro Obama mailers. Elseid, Yes,
he underperformed Poles, It's still a pretty damn good performance
in my mind, Like, that's a pretty impressive loss.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Had McMorrow dropped out earlier, I think.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
That's true, but he still would have lost by like
three points.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Maybe it's it's.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
You know, it's a meanwhile, I want to go. I'm
want to go to Wisconsin. Francesca Honks opposition she had,
she lost to a guy who dropped out, and then
you know, Mandela Barnes and lieutenant governor dropped out, and
then he came back. She was pulling ahead forty to eight.
It was complete disarrayed. There was no seventy million dollars
(25:10):
in boosting Crowley. It was just this like frantic Lake campaign,
and she got stuck at you know, thirty nine percent,
and he came from eight to forty and beat her.
So I think that that long as a candidate had
more shortcomings. And I'm not just saying that because she
lost barely and Elsi had won barely. I just think
(25:33):
that if the Wisconsin and National Democrats had co Le
Ester on Crowley sooner, he would have won by twenty five.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Like like Steven's quid it, Yeah, well, what do you
think about the white vote? If there's a whole error
in the white vote.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So I want to get yeah to the second part
of that. So generally I will often say things like
I don't think primaries have that much bearing on general elections.
I mean, there's so many examples. For instance, you know,
on the Republican side, Doug Mastriano and Carry Lake are
fantastic Republican primary candidates. They win races easily. They're poor
general election candidates. On the Democratic side, if Francesca Hong
(26:11):
had actually won by fifteen, I would still be sitting
here saying I think she's a very weak general election candidate.
But I do think there are some signs here about
white working class voters, because Francesca Hong and Abdullah Elsaia
did very poorly in a lot of areas that Bernie
Sanders beat Hillary Clinton and by twenty five. Right, this
(26:34):
is a different type of progressivism, a different new wave
of leftism, and it is really really good in these
high education urban centers. Basically, that's where Hong did well,
That's where Elsaia did well. It did poorly in some
working class, kind of white areas like Saint Clair County, Michigan,
(26:57):
where Bernie Sanders really did well with these types of
Democratic voters and alsaiaed and Hong didn't. And I actually
do think that could carry over to the general a
little bit. There's a little less interest for me.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Well, you're so right, and I never put it like this.
Bernie Sanders in twenty sixteen was saying things like open
borders as a coke pipe dream, right. He was really
not get caught up in as many culture war things.
It was really economics, economics, economics, it.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Was, it was. It was a bit pro gon. It
was before he was a bit progn he was before
woke one. It was a different right, right, right right.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
There is a certain type of foreign third world romanticism
that comes out of the Hung and the L. SAE
type in the sense that they talk about I mean else.
He just talked about football as a white supremacist sport.
That's what he wrote in his blog, I think, and
(27:58):
Hong said she wanted to cancel things which you know
may broke the.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Intnet I think, but I think the ut side thing
was like toxic masculinity, by.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
The way, but right right, it's toxic masculinity. I believe
he said it's also a structural whiteness. But maybe I'm wrong.
It might be just whatever, whatever the case is. You
know what I'm saying is is he's he's criticizing football
over his intellectualizing football from a progressive standpoint, which is
just enjoy a game and shut up, like kind of
(28:27):
like that's the average Joe Schmos, like I just want
to enjoy my Sunday. I don't care. And to a
certain extent, you know where he says on the Republican side,
the Vekramaswami who ran against a joke candidate and he
underperformed in all the white working class areas after his
cole comment that white people native born Americans are lazy
(28:50):
and his defensive h one B's and all the rest
of it. And I think there could be this whole
the narrative that's coming out of both sides of the
camp is you're criticizing Americans too much and your economic
message is getting lost. Hong brought talking about sewer socialism,
which was from the nineteen ten It's about building sewers
(29:10):
and that socialism, but it didn't translate because it got
all caught up in culture war stuff and woke to
or whatever that is. I wanted to ask one other
quick question the black turnout. Black turn out was pretty solid,
very solidly against the DSA Aligan cannets in both Michigan
and Wisconsin. And it wasn't super faarable. I don't know
(29:31):
of Minnesota, but it was. It was very It was
very much against it in miscontonin Minnesota, Wisconsin. If the
black turnout drops nationally one percent, Republicans have a very
good chance of winning, right if it goes for thirteen
twelve percent, that's the case in twenty sixteen and in
twenty twenty four. What does intensity in the black vote
look like this time in the primaries? Are black voters
(29:52):
turning out of high members? They are?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
They're on fire. So there's a really good piece lie.
A fellow at vote Hub named Ellis bat wrote about this.
The Guardian also wrote an article which is kind of
about his piece, and he was analyzing black turnout and
a lot of these Southern primaries, and again I want
to say, this is Southern primaries on the backdrop of
the VRA being overturned, and right, I don't know how
(30:15):
that will translate to twenty twenty six November. I don't
want to say, oh, because South Carolina black turnout was
really strong two weeks after the VRA was gutted, then
you know, Detroit turnout's going to be great for elseheya
this November. Right, I think that's a bit of a stretch.
But if there's any indicator from primaries, black turnout is
(30:35):
much more energized than it was in twenty twenty four,
Black turnout was pretty bad in twenty twenty four, and
then even worse for Bob Casey.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
The undervote was bad too.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
You know, a lot of black voters came out and
filled in one race in twenty twenty four in Philadelphia.
So yeah, and I don't think those people are coming
out to vote in the midterms. Right, If you didn't
even fill in the bubble in twenty twenty four, I
don't think you're coming out just for Senate race twenty
twenty six or something. But that being said, I think
(31:05):
that broadly just Democrats in general are very energized right now.
When we're talking about a D plus seven, a deplus
state environment, what that looks like The silver lining for
Republicans is I do think that D plus seven, D
plus eight looks like Democrats running up the score in
cities like they did in twenty twenty and not twenty
(31:25):
twenty four. And I'm sorry to Democrats. It doesn't help
you when the House or Senate, but you know, fifty
thousand more votes in the bronx, it doesn't really help.
So you know, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, no, And I'm glad you brought the bronx because
what does this also say about the limitations of DSA
aligned candidates? And I want to cave it with two
different ways DSA versus Bernie. Bernie did not campaign for Hong,
he did campaign for l said. Does it show a
limitation of these far left progressives winning outside of major
(31:58):
cities or is there not enough data to really work with?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So I think the big limitation here for the kind
of progressive even DSA line candidates is they struggle more
in battleground states because the Democratic electorate is obsessed with electability.
They're obsessed with electability. We saw in Iowa Josh Turik
and then easily dispatched Zach Walls. You know, Elizabeth Warren
(32:22):
backed progressive. I think a lot of Democrats in Iowa
believe strongly that Josh Turrek has a better chance to
flip the state blue. In Michigan and Wisconsin, we had
that backdrop on these races, especially with Hong. I think
the Thanksgiving thing, man, I think Republicans went too hard
on Hong in that last week. In retrospect, I think,
(32:43):
you know, the Republican media wing is probably kicking itself
for spreading all that stuff out because I think it
got Democrats really scared that she was attackable and she
was going to lose. You talked about Minnesota early. There's
no way that Peggy Flanagan is going to lose Minnesota
in a good year. There's no election debility backdrop. It
doesn't matter if Angie Craig is five points stronger than
(33:04):
Peggy Flanagan, Flanagan will be fine, and Flanagan won. So
I mean, I think there are a lot of Democrats
who really wish they could vote for Francesca Hong and
have her become their governor. The Democratic primary electorate is
very far left and very upset at the establishment. Right now,
I think they were worried if they voted for Hong
that Tom Tiffany would become their governor.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Right No. I said this in another show that the
Democratic electorate is way savvier than they have been previously. Like, wait,
not all of them. Obviously, some are just die in
the wall, like left wingers, and they'll vote for any
left wing person. And maybe something will set out the
election in November, but I don't think it's going to
be very many people. Black voters are especially shrew And
(33:45):
I'll tell you something that I never I talked to
a Democratic consultant and activist about two months ago and
I said, who do you want for November? And she said,
anyone but a woman? And this was a woman saying this,
and she's like, because they can't win, and I just
want to win. And I and this is a person
who would have gave her own blood to get Kamala
or Hillary elected. So I think that this is a
(34:06):
I think that the Democrats are being extremely shrewd. I
think that will carry on to twenty twenty eight Democratic primary.
And I think and also last point, the difference everyone
keeps all the Republicans going to say, I mean, how
do we come out of this election and save ourselves?
And my only point I keep saying is if we
go if it's a deep plus eight year or a
(34:27):
deep plus five year, you can't make it a Republican year.
But that one percent national will change a US center
ray somewhere.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
So first, first, I'd love to talk about the woman things,
just because I love making this point. So in the
twenty twenty four election, I believe it is twelve out
of the thirteen best performing Democratic US House candidates weren't
white men. So I think there's this idea I would
know what's electable, what type of Democrats are electable, and
(34:58):
a lot of people jump to white men. I've heard
that from from consultants, you know, people inside the party,
at least at the US House level. That's not true
at all. I actually spoke with Christine McDonald rivett from
the Tri Cities in Michigan earlier today on the Argument podcast.
She I believe had the highest best performance score out
of any person in any Democrat in any battleground district
(35:20):
in twenty twenty four. Right, she's a one. I just
have to make that point, because it's one of my
favorite points to make. You know, Yeah, electability isn't about
you know, someone's rice or sex. It's about you know,
what they say, how they connect with voters, et cetera.
So on the second point, you said, so Republicans in
twenty twenty four had a very good year, right, They
won the presidency, they won the House, and they got
(35:42):
fifty three Senate seats, not fifty one, not fifty two.
Republicans gave himself a nice buffer, and the map in
twenty twenty six is worse for Republicans than twenty eighteen.
In twenty eighteen, the Democrats had to win states, you know,
at to win in states like Indiana, Missouri, note the
North Dakota. Those are really Republican states R plus twenty
(36:03):
or more. Now it's down to R plus twelve, the
R plus fourteen states for the tipping point of the
Senate still a really good map for Republicans. That's difficult, right,
but it's a little bit more achievable to the point
where D plus seven or D plus eight. Environment could
be the difference here. So what I would what I
would say is if I'm a Republican, what I am
(36:24):
hoping for in November is just strong enough turnout in
these battleground states even if you don't get it nationally.
What we see in the past in these wave years
is Republicans in a place like Oregon or you know,
Alabama that believe they don't have that much to vote
for get really depressed turnout. Because Republicans overall are just
(36:48):
a little depressed right now and they're propensity to turn out.
But in these states like Texas, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, they
they turn out because they know there's something big on
the line.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yep, and Texas and Maine are the other big ones.
So I Zach you're brilliant where people go to read
more about your stuff, what you work on and what
you say, because I think everyone should read you well.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
On the head of data science at vot hub. Votehub
is a non parget partisan organization. You can find us
a lot on x right now. Our midterms forecast is
out on votube dot com if you want to go
and see that at updates every day. Me personally, I'm
on exit at Zachary Danini. My first name Zachary, and
my lovely Italian last name, which a bunch of ends
in valves.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And Zach, of course is the lastiest looking guy I've
ever met before. Zach, thank you so much for going
this podcast. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Thank you very much driving me on.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Now it's time for the Ask Me Anything segment. If
you want a part of the Ask Me Anything segment
only Ryan at Numbers Gamepodcast dot com. That's Ryan at
numbers pull our Numbers gamepodcast dot com. First question comes
from Michael. He says, if you do a daily show,
I'd watch every day. Michael, I really, I'm not joking,
and I said, I really appreciate that, like I really
appreciate you. I'm not kidding because I but before this podcast,
(38:07):
I did not get daily outreach saying that people liked
to hear me talk at all. Ever you write, I
get like between eight to ten gup fundraising text every day.
I've manually typed stop and each one confirms I've unsubscribed.
But every day new show up, including for candidates I've
never supported, or once saying they'll stop texting me, but
the link is to a donation page. Are many people
(38:28):
complaining about this? It just can't be me. Am I
going to have to keep texting one stop until November. Okay,
here's what happened, Michael, I expland I'll expecd sause I run.
I run one of these companies. I do these text messaging.
What happened is, I don't text what we do fundraising
for candidates. What happens is is when you donate to
a candidate, you're on their list, their donor list. And
the way that it works is this. If you get
a solicitation from a text message for a candidate you've
(38:50):
never seen before, and you give them a dollar, ninety
to ninety five percent of that dollar goes to the
company or the person who owns the list. So I
own a list from the seventeen seventy six Project pack.
My list is over one hundred thousand memes. I have
never given it out to rent ever I can, but
I will never do because I love my donors. I
don't want to annoy them. I don't want them to
stop giving to me. So we're my pack for the
(39:12):
school board elections. But what happens is if I were
to do that and say, all right, everyone, it's a
free for all, take my list, I would get ninety
five percent ninety ninety five percent of every dollar that
was fund raised from that initial message, and then once
you're on their house file, every and every dollar afterwards,
the candidate gets ninety to ninety five percent. So just
an asterisk if you want to do that, if you
(39:33):
want to, if you want to, if you want to donate,
just go on their website directly. Don't through the text
messaging like that would actually hurt the candidate. What I
would suggest to you is stop pressing stop, because what
you're doing with pressing stop is you're engaging. If they
believe the line is dead, that you don't have the
phone anymore, you're the number, you don't, you don't whatever
they get you passed away. I'm not saying wishing that,
(39:56):
but if they believe that you're not engaging anymore, eventually,
over time they will actually not message you. If you
press stop, it means that they know that you are
still engaged in that phone line. So just don't do anything.
It will die off and one of the candids you
support over time soldier list. I mean, I hate to
say it like that, but they did. Okay, you're other questions.
(40:17):
By the way, you said, everyone on the right correctly
hates Senator John Curtis, Senator from Utah, which is true.
John Curtis is terrible. Apparently both Trump and the utahgup
Endors's opponent trend stags. If he still won. How is
as possible? So I did look this up for you
because I read this question. Curtis is terrible on the issues,
is wag and moderate for such a conservative state. Utah
(40:37):
is a very interesting beast within itself. The Mormon Church
plays a very big role in politics in Utah. Utah's
population does not like crude people. It's why Trump performs
pretty poorly in Utah, believe it or not, despite winning,
the state does and performs super well for a Republican.
They outperform him. What I think happened was Curtis Curtis
(41:00):
was running on you to protecting Utah's environment and working
across party lines, and that is very popular and appealing
to a population that like niceness. Mormons do like at
least showing them nice, and Mormons are a nice I'm
not I love my Mormon listeners. Mormons are very nice
and they like the appeal of nice and Trent the
Trent's stake their other Republican the Trumpetwars candidate was talking
(41:22):
about the election of being stolen, and I think it
rubbed too many people the wrong way. That's what I think.
And I asked people from Utah and that's what they
told me. So I'm gonna say that is yes. Next
question comes from Jay, longtime listener, but it's a numbers game.
I have a question. I suspect you be a sharper
answer to anyone else. I moved from my family from
New Hampshire to Sarasota last year, so I've lived inside
two very different versions of state level conservatism. New Hampshire's libertarian,
(41:44):
infected and allergic to spending. But my read is that
the pre Trump gepiece still holds most of the power there,
which caps how far it can move. Florida is more
muscular and institutional five years out. Which state do you
think is actually more conservative? And does New Hampshire's in
migration for masses eventually flipped the state. That is a
great question. The Massachusetts migration is kind of already flip
(42:05):
the state. I mean, remember New Hampshire only had elected
Republicans both at the state level and at the federal level.
But the people moving from Massachusetts don't like taxes either,
so it's keeping them. They're voting Republican in local government,
even though they're voting for Democrat for federal governments. Like
they do want abortion, they don't want taxes. New Hampshire
has a very republican state government and Kelley Ayot's the
(42:28):
government republican governor. What I think the difference is because
New Hampshire has a part time legislature. The state senators
and State House members are paid either one or two
hundred dollars per year, I forget which one it is.
And there are four hundred members of the New Hampshire
State House, which is like one for every four thousand people.
(42:49):
It's very difficult. They are lobbying infrastructure, and that is
a good thing Florida. Having dealt a little bit with
Florida politics, the lobbying in the Florida legislature and among
Florida governor is so intense. This is why Dessanta's not
that he didn't get anything done in his first term,
but it was a lot of those COVID base and
(43:10):
rightfully so. But if you look at the legislative agenda
for the conservative victories, a lot of them come in
the second term. Because Desanta's really needed to spend an
entire term getting his people in the legislature. He campaigned
very aggressively down ballot because they were holding up immigration stuff,
they were holding up tech stuff, they were holding up
I mean, a lot of the things that he wanted
(43:30):
to do he really couldn't do under the existing legislature.
And that's the problem in Florida. The Florida the tourism industry,
the agricultural lobby, all these people really hold up a
lot of things from getting done, which is why I
think New Hampshire could go further if the population was there.
The population's not there. I think the Florida people want
(43:52):
more but can't get it because the government's different. That's
what I think. But they have Also, New Hampshire does
not have as strong a governor as Florida. As Florida
had the very strong governors. Why Dessanders was able to
do so much. So we'll see how that continues, depending
on if Fire and Donald, why I believe will probably
be the next governor, how he does and how he
uses the strength of the governorship. Last question, which is
(44:12):
not really a question, it is a comment. It comes
from Paul, but a previous episode, Paul writes, love your Show.
I heard a comment on Wednesday's podcast about a candidate
from western North Carolina, the Senate candidate who's running as
a Republican that his call to end FEMA during Hurricane
Helene recovered for FEMA was purposely stealing and awarding food
and supplies brought by in by volunteers. They were blocking
(44:33):
rescue efforts. They reached a point where the sheriffs were
ordered to arrest FEMA agents on site and were called
blocking rescue efforts by the Democrat. Yes, you heard the
right governor. FEMA was also ordered to skip any house
with a Trump sign. I don't know if that's true,
but I will take your word for it. The latter
event led to trump on led Trump to fire several
FEMA staff. There are a ton of news articles on
(44:55):
the subject. No reason to provide lengths. Our expaccuriance in
eastern North Carolina is identical. FEMA I showed up about
ten to twenty days after the hurricane and left local
immediate rescue efforts was largely completed. They pay seven hundred
and fifty dollars cash anyone with no insurance, no under insured,
no waiting whatever. Okay, not whatever, but it's it's going on.
(45:15):
A word is out. Never talked to FEMA. Same story
in Flora and Tennessee and Georgia. Okay, I understand what
you're saying. And I so what I said was the
Republican Michael Watley said he wanted to end FEMA and
move all rescue stuff to a state program. And I
said it was bad for Wattley because he'd said want
to end FEMA. I'm not defending the institution of FEMA,
(45:36):
and maybe I should have been a little more specific
about that. I'm not saying FEMA is a great institution.
I'm not saying that FEMA does everything perfectly. That's not
the point. The point is he said abolish FEMA in
the audio tape, and that someone had taped him secretly
saying that. And the problem that with that is that
you can splice it. Not have the power. He says,
(45:57):
let's bring the money and give it to the states
for emergencies. Just splice it and say the Democrats and
say this man wants to end FEMA, and you hear
nothing else about the recovery. How do you said, I'm
for a program to and I not said any about
ending FEMA, but saying, you know, I'm really looking forward
to trying to get a state to give more money
to the states, and not to ending it. It would
(46:19):
have been safer. So I'm not defending and it's not
people who experience hurricane and disaster at lease with FEMA.
I live in Louisiana half the year. Everyone I know
he lived through a hurricane Katrina. They all have horror stories.
I'm not defending them as an institution, but people who
think about FEMA but never experience them have very high
opinions about them. So when you're being secretly taped, which
(46:42):
I know you didn't know, you need to be very
careful with your words. And that was my part, is
that people can slice that up and misinterpret it to
deceive voters ahead of November. That was the point. That
was what I was saying. Sorry, I needed that clarification.
Thank you for holding me up to it. I'm gladly
willing to explain myself if you guys have an issue
(47:02):
with something I said. Thank you so much for listening
this episode. If you like this podcast, please like and
subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, and on YouTube
and If you have time, give me a five star review.
It really helps. Talk to you guys on Monday. Have
a great weekend.
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