July 29, 2024 • 25 mins
The latest episode dives into the unprecedented political landscape as President Joe Biden steps down, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor. Our guest, Dr. Leonard Lira, a seasoned political scientist and current chair of a public policy department, provides expert analysis on this historic event.
We explore the implications of Biden's withdrawal, the delegate process, and the potential legal challenges from the Trump campaign. Dr. Lira also sheds light on the surge in new voter registrations and the impact of grassroots movements supporting Harris.
Join us for a comprehensive discussion on the upcoming presidential race and the evolving dynamics within the Democratic Party.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:44):
You're a kind of an expert in what we'll be talking about today.
You, to refresh people's memory, you serve on the board at an area college.
You have a doctor of philosophy degree, master of public information,
masters of international relations.
You have taught political science at San Jose State and at West Point.
(01:05):
And needless to say, I'm still impressed. Well, thank you.
Yeah, I have a doctorate in public administration, a master's in public administration,
master's in international relations.
And I have been an assistant professor of political science and public administration
at San Jose State, and I'm currently the chair of a public policy department
at an area college within our local area.
(01:28):
Okay. I have to caveat that all of my comments are my own opinions,
not representative of the current college I work for. Of course, of course.
Now, we have you on the podcast because obviously there are some activity in the presidential race.
And needless to say, that is because the presumptive nominee,
(01:49):
President Joe Biden, has opted to not run again.
So we're in a unique situation, or at least pretty unique.
And that is that he has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
Now, is this an unusual event?
It certainly is, right? This is what we would say is a historical event.
(02:10):
This event happening in this manner
where a presidential candidate who had won all of the votes in their primary
and caucuses in each of the states for the primary elections has dropped out
of the election and then passed the torch on to presumptive successor.
(02:31):
There have been several, I've been reading a lot of reports this week of how
this looks like in history.
You know, they talked about Johnson dropping out from his elections.
Probably that's the most memorable for our audience, but he dropped out in the
March timeframe before the elections.
And so the party had an opportunity to go through and find a new candidate to run.
(02:53):
And closest one to where a candidate had made it through the election,
I think it was Humphrey's,
running mate, and I forget the year, but the vice president was picked,
and then it was rumored that he had had mental issues.
And so after the elections, the primary elections, the vice president candidate
(03:14):
dropped out, which really is
only significant to the fact that he was a running mate for the president.
So short answer to your question, this is completely historical.
We haven't had anything like this happen before. Now, what you're referring
to, that was in 1968, was it not? That's correct.
Johnson's withdrawal from the election in March of 1968.
(03:35):
Okay. Now, you know, we're talking about Kamala Harris being the presumptive
nominee, but technically speaking, she has not been formally nominated yet. That's correct, right?
That is correct. She has to gain the majority of the delegates that have been
pledged for the candidate.
The normal way this works, as we've all watched over the last six to nine months,
(03:59):
states have either a caucus or a primary where they identify delegates who then
are pledged to vote for a particular candidate.
In this case, for the Democratic Party, the majority of the votes,
you know, 14 million people to be exact, identified or put their support with
delegates who pledge to vote and nominate Biden.
(04:21):
So now Biden is out of the race and the pledged delegates don't have a candidate to pledge towards.
And so the Democratic Party right now has to go through a process in which they
identify which way the delegates will vote.
And when you look at the rules for the National Democratic Party,
(04:42):
and I will say that each of the state's parties have have their own rules as well.
So the way that each state will identify delegates to pledge one way or the
other for which candidate or the other will be run by their states,
I think here in Texas, our state.
Democratic State Party has been going through by telephonic means and electronic
email means and identifying the delegates who are identified or sent from Texas,
(05:05):
which way will they vote for.
I did see online that for Texas District 21, all of our delegates have pledged
their support for Kamala Harris.
And so in Texas, that's how they're doing it. They'll be figuring this out in
each of the different states.
But when you look at the rules for the Democratic National Committee,
it does state that the The delegate is supposed to pledge their support and
(05:29):
vote to nominate the candidate that was supported or had the most preference
of votes within their districts.
But then there's this caveat that says delegates will not be held accountable
if they vote their conscience, which kind of leaves the door open.
And one of the things that is interesting about our nominating process is that
(05:51):
there are no rules for this, actually.
So they make these up as they go based on precedent and culture and history,
and they try to make it as transparent and as legitimate as possible.
And that's the goal, right?
The Democratic Party, the Republican Party, they're not government organizations.
These are quasi-private organizations that are putting forward candidates.
(06:12):
And the way our democracy works, anybody can form a party. Anybody can put forward delegates.
Who has the most political momentum, the money, all of the infrastructure put in place?
Currently, it happens to be the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
And so they'll find a way within the next couple of weeks and months to do that.
(06:32):
In fact, I think the last report I heard on The New York Times that they're
going to be holding a voice vote,
which is critical because there's some some potential legal challenges to any
candidate that the Democratic National Committee puts forward with the Ohio
state laws for the getting there,
getting a candidate on the elections for national elections in time.
(06:54):
Yeah, that was my next question.
Sorry to interrupt. But there are some issues where technically,
I guess, she might not make it on some states' ballots. Is that correct?
Yeah, I think that the voice vote will cover that.
They'll get the initial vote from the delegates when they do their voice roll call.
I know that most of the Texas, I'm assuming since Texas 1041 pledged their support,
(07:17):
find out after the August 1st roll call. Right, right. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you said they were going to go through a phone call system in order to
get those in by the deadline, right?
Okay. Aside from that, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said it is unlawful for
Democrats to simply switch out a candidate who has been chosen through the democratic process.
(07:41):
But election law experts say that he is wrong.
I would trust the election law experts more than I would Mike Johnson. Yeah, absolutely.
But they may be going to court or at least they're threatening some lawsuits
on this thing, right? Right. Yeah.
And there's one thing that we learned in watching politics over the last so
(08:01):
many years since Donald Trump has been on the scene is that anybody can sue
anybody and make any statement in court.
Absolutely. Another issue that had been brought up was about campaign contributions
already made to President Biden.
Can they be used for Harris? I know, of course, she would have been part of
that ticket anyway. Anyway, so how does that play?
(08:22):
So my understanding right now is that the way that the campaign finance was
set up for Biden was that it wasn't just towards Biden, that it was it was towards
the Biden-Harris ticket.
Sure. And so there I know there's a legal challenge to that right now.
The Trump campaign has filed a
grievance or a request for the Elections Commission to deny that transfer.
(08:45):
Naturally. I think that's going to be upheld in the court the way they had structured it.
And just to put this into context, over the last week, I think before Biden
dropped out, in the total election coffers, I think he was up to about $95 million.
And within 36 hours, Harris had raised $81 million.
(09:10):
And it's daunting, right? Right. So there may be some delay on her ability to
access that $95 million, but she's on track to probably double that amount on her own accord.
And so what will probably happen once they work through the rules and if there
is any legal lawsuits, that she'll have a sizable reserve to carry her through
(09:30):
at the last part of the election.
Okay. Yeah, it would appear that way. So then if there are any legal challenges,
could that delay the election or throw another iron in the fire?
Absolutely not. As I mentioned earlier, she's got enough momentum and enough
money right now to carry her forward.
Not to mention that the majority of the donations she received were first-time
(09:54):
donators, and she's also got a huge boost in volunteers.
So each of the state offices that are running the communications network and
the Get Out the Vote network has got this huge influx of volunteers to help
run her campaign on the ground level.
So this is not going to stop the election in any means whatsoever.
(10:15):
November 5th is coming. All right. Well, yeah, I think, you know,
naturally, I guess you would expect, especially coming from Trump and the people
he worked with, that they would try to tie things up in court because that's
pretty much his tactic on everything.
Absolutely. I suspect you're going to see several cases go through,
but just like they had occurred previously after the election in 2020.
(10:37):
2020, I estimate that the majority of those, if there aren't any legal moves
by the Trump administration or the Trump campaign, that they'll be quickly batted down by the courts.
Okay. Yeah, it certainly would seem that way. Now, which court would that go
to? Would that go all the way to the Supreme Court?
So I think they, I think, I don't think it would go to the Supreme Court initially.
(10:58):
I think they'll, what they seem to be doing is starting with the election commission first.
And if that rules against them, then they're probably going to go to the state
courts. They'll have to go to the state courts because each of the state legislatures
are responsible for the time, place, and manner of their elections and how they run them.
And all of the parties have their states within or have their operations within
the states first as well.
So I think they'll have to work their way up. So even that, I think,
(11:21):
will be, you know, again, I'm not an expert in the legal process here,
but just looking at who has standing and where they have to make the laws that
complain at, it seems like they would have to start at the state level first.
They may find traction like within Texas or some of the red states,
but then that would be quickly appealed to a federal court.
And then that's where the courts will probably expedite the process to get them
(11:44):
moving along so that we can have our elections so that the country can have
an election by November 5th.
So then does that mean that each state would have to deal with the issue individually?
Potentially. I just don't know what the legal strategy of the Trump campaign
is going to try right now. They may try to –.
Do that just to slow down the election. But again, I don't think that's,
(12:07):
you know, even if they have a, I just don't see where the legal standing is
for anybody to sue and prevent Harris from becoming the candidate.
I mean, it's just not, it just doesn't make sense because, again,
there's nothing in law that specifies how a political party identifies their candidate, it, right?
(12:29):
And in fact, even the preliminary elections, we didn't have those in history
or the beginning of it. There's nothing about this in the Constitution.
So these are all legal rules, or not legal rules, but these are all party rules
that are being made up from state to state to state so they can provide an air
of transparency and legitimacy.
(12:50):
And so really, they're going to have to contest the rules at each of the state
levels first, and then try to contest it at the national, at the Democratic
Party. But again, they don't have standing.
That's my opinion. Okay.
Is it possible, I'm sure it's an outside possibility, but is it possible that
other Democratic candidates could throw their hat in the ring at the convention?
(13:10):
Absolutely, it's possible. And there's still some talk about some of the other candidates.
I mean, Kennedy's one that he's not running, obviously running as an independent,
but he's still in the race as a third party.
I think there were a couple of mentions, even Joe Manchin had mentioned that
he was thinking about running.
It was unclear if he was thinking about running because he wanted to actually
(13:33):
take the ticket or because he was trying to make it more competitive and actually support Harris.
But most of the Democrats who would have a contention to run and would be competitors,
have endorsed Harris. Yes, yes.
So even if we have another candidate that runs, they probably will not have
(13:53):
the support of the delegates.
And she'll end up with all of the delegates or the required number of delegates.
But she needs to secure the nomination. Sure, sure.
Now, how the public feels about Biden dropping out. I was just reading a recent
New York Times Siena College poll.
Eighty seven percent approve of Biden's decision. Only nine percent disapprove.
(14:17):
That doesn't surprise me. Yeah. The mood that we saw in the polls was was leaning
towards the president dropping out.
But what was interesting, though, and we're talking about the national mood
on this, even Even two weeks after the call, after the debate, right?
So they had a poll immediately the week after the debate between Biden and Trump.
(14:39):
And it was a CBS YouGo poll. And it had 55% of registered Democrats still said
that he should run, right?
And the news media really caught on to the fact that 46% said he should drop out.
But the majority still said he should run. Yes.
Two weeks later, they ran that same poll again, and his percentage didn't go
up much, but it went to 56 percent.
(15:01):
And the percentage that said he should drop out was 44 percent.
That's not to say that people didn't think he should he should not have dropped
out or he should have dropped out.
Obviously, there was a move forward and a lot of the leaders in the Democratic
Party thought that way as well.
But it is to say that there was still strong support behind an anti-Trump candidate, right?
(15:21):
And what's also interesting is post the debate, the polls didn't really move much in favor of Trump.
And especially after the convention, you know, there's a lot of,
this guy's a lot of political scientists point to, you know,
post-convention bumps, right?
Trump has not gotten a post-convention bump.
If anything, it's kind of stalled. Yeah, I think I'd seen where on some polls,
(15:47):
and I couldn't tell you which one, but maybe he got 1% of a bump,
but virtually nothing, really. Yeah.
And right now, I think a lot of people are looking at the polls to see is Harris
going to rise in the polls.
And I've been watching the polls that average the races, right?
Like 538 is one that comes to mind.
(16:07):
They provide an average rating of all the polls. They take all the polls that
come out and they do an average and see where everybody stands.
The gap is narrow between Harris and Trump.
They're within one point of each other and the margin of error is like 2%. So it's really tight.
And then also RealClearPolitics is another one I look at. They do an average
(16:30):
poll. They still show Trump leading in many of the polls.
One of the things I noticed at the beginning of the week, right after she,
like two or three days after she became the, she took up the torch from Biden.
I think they ran like 10 or 15 polls and she was only leading in two.
I just looked at them today and now she's leading in four.
I suspect that we're not going to get a full sounding or feedback from the polls
(16:55):
until about a week or two weeks from the date that Biden dropped out.
Yeah. Then we'll start to see how the because a lot of the polls are based on
still, you know, when she was a hypothetical candidate.
Yes. Now we're going to now she's going to be on the platform.
People are going to be able to see her. There's been huge momentum at the grassroots
levels for, you know, Zoom calls.
And, you know, I think last night there was one hundred fifty thousand women
(17:17):
who got on a Zoom call and raised like an immense amount of money for that hasn't
been accounted for yet in the latest financial rules. So I think we're going
to see a bigger movement.
The question will be, can that sustain? Can she sustain that for three months?
Three months is a short time away, but it can also be a long period away.
(17:37):
Yeah. But I think right now, the way it looks, Harris has got the momentum.
She's got the support of the majority of the Democratic Party.
Right, right, right. And I think I think the Republican strategists in the Republican
campaign for Trump are really trying to figure out how to readjust their course
in order to have a better message and try to and try to not allow her to be the,
(18:00):
you know, the next president of the United States.
Well, sure. Of course. Now, I'd also read recently that new voter registrations
took a nice little jump in the last few days. Yes.
And the voter registration has jumped with the youth and with minorities.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so that was lacking in the Biden campaign, if you remember.
(18:24):
Right, right. Not a lot of youths were voting. And I think she's gonna get,
she's got implicit endorsement from a lot of media stars, Taylor Swift, for example.
All those Swifties come out and said, you know, you know, all the Swifties be coming out to vote.
And, you know, the comment from the vice president about cat ladies and stuff
(18:46):
certainly didn't help help in that regard for the Republicans.
And so, yeah, I think the other thing that that that really stands out is a
lot of a lot of new women voters, too.
And I think it still has to deal with the reproductive care. Absolutely.
Issue. And the fact that if you have one party who wants to reduce or get rid
(19:06):
of that right for 51 percent of our population, and then you have another party
who wants to enshrine it in law so that they can have it.
So if you're a young woman and you're thinking about having a family,
which party are you going to vote for?
You know, our youth, like I mentioned in our last podcast, they're smart.
(19:29):
They know where their interest lies and which parties really support their interests
and which parties are trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
I've talked to several of the young women in my family and my students, and they all agree.
Point to the fact that they realize that their rights are in jeopardy right
now if the Republican Party takes over, that they'll lose that right.
(19:52):
And they're concerned about what other rights that they'll lose.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And I know there was just recently a meeting of Democratic women of Kamala County,
and they had a bunch of new people show up that had not been there before.
So we're definitely sparking some interest, particularly over reproductive rights.
Absolutely. And so I think what we're going to also see, I saw a message from
(20:16):
our county Democratic chair where they were originally voting on.
We had an influx of money to be able to put billboards up. We didn't really
put billboards in our area.
Right, right. For the 2020 election. I think we got one up.
But overnight, we've got like, I don't know how much money exactly it was,
but it was enough to get at least one billboard up, maybe more. And more may be coming.
(20:41):
And I don't think we raised enough money last time to get one up until about
a month prior to the election.
We're three months out, and so we already raised enough money to get at least
one up and probably with a good message on it.
I suspect that the local Kamal party will be able to raise more money and get
maybe a couple more billboards up in key areas along 46 Corridor,
(21:03):
the 281 Corridor, and the 35 Corridor going north from New Bronzeville.
I think there's some good key locations where we can get a good message out for Kamala Harris.
Absolutely. Yes, there's talk to some people say, well, is three months really enough time?
But I think in some countries they have as little as a month or even,
(21:24):
you know, less time than that to for presidential candidates to campaign.
The recent example was France when they called the flash elections recently.
I think they did it within a month and it looked like the extreme right in the
French was going to take over. But all it did was eluded the political power.
The left came out actually even stronger.
The further left came out actually stronger than the moderates.
(21:46):
Kind of lost power and then the rights didn't gain as much power as they thought.
But the point of the matter is that they were able to knock that out within
a month. I think we're able to do it within three months as well.
We've already got the delegates chosen. That was the most important part for the state conventions.
And I think that's what people tend to forget is that the structure for our
elections is already in place.
(22:07):
The primary was just to select delegates and allow them to choose who to vote for.
Now that the conditions have changed, the delegates are still there.
We just, they just have to make up their mind of who they're going to support.
And I think that that's, I think that they, they've done that.
Absolutely. You know, when we talk about the polls, I mean, they always say,
you know, how accurate are polls really?
(22:27):
It's always plus or minus three points. I mean, it's really hard to judge just by reading polls.
The key indicators for our, you know, your listening audience to look for in
the polls is the date that it was, it was done.
How, how relevant house, you know, is it, was it over a week ago or was it recently?
What's the number of people who voted in? You at least want to have between
(22:49):
2,000 to 5,000 more is better. But then also the margin of error.
If it's a wide margin of error, like we're talking six to 10 point spread,
that means that it could swing within 10 percentage points up or down.
And that's not a very reliable poll. The tighter the margin of error,
two to 3%, those are the industry standards.
(23:11):
And so be cognizant of those polls that are published by other sources,
and look at the fine details.
And they usually, if they don't put the margin of error, be suspect.
If they list the margin of error, pay attention to the margin of error, and they can tell you.
Then the other thing I would tell you about polls, given how hard it is to poll,
it takes a lot of money for polling organizations to try to reduce bias and
(23:39):
try to get the right numbers.
And so they are not as accurate.
The only polls that you can really pay attention to are the ones that come on the ballot box.
That and maybe, maybe the donations, right?
People vote with their money and with their feet. And the amount of money that
Harris has raised over the last week is certainly significant.
(24:00):
And I don't think it correlates well with how she looks right now in the polls.
And I think it's going to be a leading indicator, meaning that it's showing
us what's going to happen in the future. chair.
I think we're going to see a huge bump in her polls in the next couple of weeks.
But again, the only polls that you can really rely on are the ones that happen at the ballot box.
(24:21):
Yeah, I think you're right. And I think you're right. And I think we'll see
a jump after the convention as well. Right. All right. Well, Dr.
Leonard Leroy, we appreciate you offering some clarification on some of these
issues that, like we have said, just have only happened, you know,
less than a handful of times in our history.
Absolutely. You're welcome. Thanks for having me on.
(25:10):
Music.
Music.
(00:44):
You're a kind of an expert in what we'll be talking about today.
You, to refresh people's memory, you serve on the board at an area college.
You have a doctor of philosophy degree, master of public information,
masters of international relations.
You have taught political science at San Jose State and at West Point.
(01:05):
And needless to say, I'm still impressed. Well, thank you.
Yeah, I have a doctorate in public administration, a master's in public administration,
master's in international relations.
And I have been an assistant professor of political science and public administration
at San Jose State, and I'm currently the chair of a public policy department
at an area college within our local area.
(01:28):
Okay. I have to caveat that all of my comments are my own opinions,
not representative of the current college I work for. Of course, of course.
Now, we have you on the podcast because obviously there are some activity in the presidential race.
And needless to say, that is because the presumptive nominee,
(01:49):
President Joe Biden, has opted to not run again.
So we're in a unique situation, or at least pretty unique.
And that is that he has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
Now, is this an unusual event?
It certainly is, right? This is what we would say is a historical event.
(02:10):
This event happening in this manner
where a presidential candidate who had won all of the votes in their primary
and caucuses in each of the states for the primary elections has dropped out
of the election and then passed the torch on to presumptive successor.
(02:31):
There have been several, I've been reading a lot of reports this week of how
this looks like in history.
You know, they talked about Johnson dropping out from his elections.
Probably that's the most memorable for our audience, but he dropped out in the
March timeframe before the elections.
And so the party had an opportunity to go through and find a new candidate to run.
(02:53):
And closest one to where a candidate had made it through the election,
I think it was Humphrey's,
running mate, and I forget the year, but the vice president was picked,
and then it was rumored that he had had mental issues.
And so after the elections, the primary elections, the vice president candidate
(03:14):
dropped out, which really is
only significant to the fact that he was a running mate for the president.
So short answer to your question, this is completely historical.
We haven't had anything like this happen before. Now, what you're referring
to, that was in 1968, was it not? That's correct.
Johnson's withdrawal from the election in March of 1968.
(03:35):
Okay. Now, you know, we're talking about Kamala Harris being the presumptive
nominee, but technically speaking, she has not been formally nominated yet. That's correct, right?
That is correct. She has to gain the majority of the delegates that have been
pledged for the candidate.
The normal way this works, as we've all watched over the last six to nine months,
(03:59):
states have either a caucus or a primary where they identify delegates who then
are pledged to vote for a particular candidate.
In this case, for the Democratic Party, the majority of the votes,
you know, 14 million people to be exact, identified or put their support with
delegates who pledge to vote and nominate Biden.
(04:21):
So now Biden is out of the race and the pledged delegates don't have a candidate to pledge towards.
And so the Democratic Party right now has to go through a process in which they
identify which way the delegates will vote.
And when you look at the rules for the National Democratic Party,
(04:42):
and I will say that each of the state's parties have have their own rules as well.
So the way that each state will identify delegates to pledge one way or the
other for which candidate or the other will be run by their states,
I think here in Texas, our state.
Democratic State Party has been going through by telephonic means and electronic
email means and identifying the delegates who are identified or sent from Texas,
(05:05):
which way will they vote for.
I did see online that for Texas District 21, all of our delegates have pledged
their support for Kamala Harris.
And so in Texas, that's how they're doing it. They'll be figuring this out in
each of the different states.
But when you look at the rules for the Democratic National Committee,
it does state that the The delegate is supposed to pledge their support and
(05:29):
vote to nominate the candidate that was supported or had the most preference
of votes within their districts.
But then there's this caveat that says delegates will not be held accountable
if they vote their conscience, which kind of leaves the door open.
And one of the things that is interesting about our nominating process is that
(05:51):
there are no rules for this, actually.
So they make these up as they go based on precedent and culture and history,
and they try to make it as transparent and as legitimate as possible.
And that's the goal, right?
The Democratic Party, the Republican Party, they're not government organizations.
These are quasi-private organizations that are putting forward candidates.
(06:12):
And the way our democracy works, anybody can form a party. Anybody can put forward delegates.
Who has the most political momentum, the money, all of the infrastructure put in place?
Currently, it happens to be the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
And so they'll find a way within the next couple of weeks and months to do that.
(06:32):
In fact, I think the last report I heard on The New York Times that they're
going to be holding a voice vote,
which is critical because there's some some potential legal challenges to any
candidate that the Democratic National Committee puts forward with the Ohio
state laws for the getting there,
getting a candidate on the elections for national elections in time.
(06:54):
Yeah, that was my next question.
Sorry to interrupt. But there are some issues where technically,
I guess, she might not make it on some states' ballots. Is that correct?
Yeah, I think that the voice vote will cover that.
They'll get the initial vote from the delegates when they do their voice roll call.
I know that most of the Texas, I'm assuming since Texas 1041 pledged their support,
(07:17):
find out after the August 1st roll call. Right, right. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you said they were going to go through a phone call system in order to
get those in by the deadline, right?
Okay. Aside from that, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said it is unlawful for
Democrats to simply switch out a candidate who has been chosen through the democratic process.
(07:41):
But election law experts say that he is wrong.
I would trust the election law experts more than I would Mike Johnson. Yeah, absolutely.
But they may be going to court or at least they're threatening some lawsuits
on this thing, right? Right. Yeah.
And there's one thing that we learned in watching politics over the last so
(08:01):
many years since Donald Trump has been on the scene is that anybody can sue
anybody and make any statement in court.
Absolutely. Another issue that had been brought up was about campaign contributions
already made to President Biden.
Can they be used for Harris? I know, of course, she would have been part of
that ticket anyway. Anyway, so how does that play?
(08:22):
So my understanding right now is that the way that the campaign finance was
set up for Biden was that it wasn't just towards Biden, that it was it was towards
the Biden-Harris ticket.
Sure. And so there I know there's a legal challenge to that right now.
The Trump campaign has filed a
grievance or a request for the Elections Commission to deny that transfer.
(08:45):
Naturally. I think that's going to be upheld in the court the way they had structured it.
And just to put this into context, over the last week, I think before Biden
dropped out, in the total election coffers, I think he was up to about $95 million.
And within 36 hours, Harris had raised $81 million.
(09:10):
And it's daunting, right? Right. So there may be some delay on her ability to
access that $95 million, but she's on track to probably double that amount on her own accord.
And so what will probably happen once they work through the rules and if there
is any legal lawsuits, that she'll have a sizable reserve to carry her through
(09:30):
at the last part of the election.
Okay. Yeah, it would appear that way. So then if there are any legal challenges,
could that delay the election or throw another iron in the fire?
Absolutely not. As I mentioned earlier, she's got enough momentum and enough
money right now to carry her forward.
Not to mention that the majority of the donations she received were first-time
(09:54):
donators, and she's also got a huge boost in volunteers.
So each of the state offices that are running the communications network and
the Get Out the Vote network has got this huge influx of volunteers to help
run her campaign on the ground level.
So this is not going to stop the election in any means whatsoever.
(10:15):
November 5th is coming. All right. Well, yeah, I think, you know,
naturally, I guess you would expect, especially coming from Trump and the people
he worked with, that they would try to tie things up in court because that's
pretty much his tactic on everything.
Absolutely. I suspect you're going to see several cases go through,
but just like they had occurred previously after the election in 2020.
(10:37):
2020, I estimate that the majority of those, if there aren't any legal moves
by the Trump administration or the Trump campaign, that they'll be quickly batted down by the courts.
Okay. Yeah, it certainly would seem that way. Now, which court would that go
to? Would that go all the way to the Supreme Court?
So I think they, I think, I don't think it would go to the Supreme Court initially.
(10:58):
I think they'll, what they seem to be doing is starting with the election commission first.
And if that rules against them, then they're probably going to go to the state
courts. They'll have to go to the state courts because each of the state legislatures
are responsible for the time, place, and manner of their elections and how they run them.
And all of the parties have their states within or have their operations within
the states first as well.
So I think they'll have to work their way up. So even that, I think,
(11:21):
will be, you know, again, I'm not an expert in the legal process here,
but just looking at who has standing and where they have to make the laws that
complain at, it seems like they would have to start at the state level first.
They may find traction like within Texas or some of the red states,
but then that would be quickly appealed to a federal court.
And then that's where the courts will probably expedite the process to get them
(11:44):
moving along so that we can have our elections so that the country can have
an election by November 5th.
So then does that mean that each state would have to deal with the issue individually?
Potentially. I just don't know what the legal strategy of the Trump campaign
is going to try right now. They may try to –.
Do that just to slow down the election. But again, I don't think that's,
(12:07):
you know, even if they have a, I just don't see where the legal standing is
for anybody to sue and prevent Harris from becoming the candidate.
I mean, it's just not, it just doesn't make sense because, again,
there's nothing in law that specifies how a political party identifies their candidate, it, right?
(12:29):
And in fact, even the preliminary elections, we didn't have those in history
or the beginning of it. There's nothing about this in the Constitution.
So these are all legal rules, or not legal rules, but these are all party rules
that are being made up from state to state to state so they can provide an air
of transparency and legitimacy.
(12:50):
And so really, they're going to have to contest the rules at each of the state
levels first, and then try to contest it at the national, at the Democratic
Party. But again, they don't have standing.
That's my opinion. Okay.
Is it possible, I'm sure it's an outside possibility, but is it possible that
other Democratic candidates could throw their hat in the ring at the convention?
(13:10):
Absolutely, it's possible. And there's still some talk about some of the other candidates.
I mean, Kennedy's one that he's not running, obviously running as an independent,
but he's still in the race as a third party.
I think there were a couple of mentions, even Joe Manchin had mentioned that
he was thinking about running.
It was unclear if he was thinking about running because he wanted to actually
(13:33):
take the ticket or because he was trying to make it more competitive and actually support Harris.
But most of the Democrats who would have a contention to run and would be competitors,
have endorsed Harris. Yes, yes.
So even if we have another candidate that runs, they probably will not have
(13:53):
the support of the delegates.
And she'll end up with all of the delegates or the required number of delegates.
But she needs to secure the nomination. Sure, sure.
Now, how the public feels about Biden dropping out. I was just reading a recent
New York Times Siena College poll.
Eighty seven percent approve of Biden's decision. Only nine percent disapprove.
(14:17):
That doesn't surprise me. Yeah. The mood that we saw in the polls was was leaning
towards the president dropping out.
But what was interesting, though, and we're talking about the national mood
on this, even Even two weeks after the call, after the debate, right?
So they had a poll immediately the week after the debate between Biden and Trump.
(14:39):
And it was a CBS YouGo poll. And it had 55% of registered Democrats still said
that he should run, right?
And the news media really caught on to the fact that 46% said he should drop out.
But the majority still said he should run. Yes.
Two weeks later, they ran that same poll again, and his percentage didn't go
up much, but it went to 56 percent.
(15:01):
And the percentage that said he should drop out was 44 percent.
That's not to say that people didn't think he should he should not have dropped
out or he should have dropped out.
Obviously, there was a move forward and a lot of the leaders in the Democratic
Party thought that way as well.
But it is to say that there was still strong support behind an anti-Trump candidate, right?
(15:21):
And what's also interesting is post the debate, the polls didn't really move much in favor of Trump.
And especially after the convention, you know, there's a lot of,
this guy's a lot of political scientists point to, you know,
post-convention bumps, right?
Trump has not gotten a post-convention bump.
If anything, it's kind of stalled. Yeah, I think I'd seen where on some polls,
(15:47):
and I couldn't tell you which one, but maybe he got 1% of a bump,
but virtually nothing, really. Yeah.
And right now, I think a lot of people are looking at the polls to see is Harris
going to rise in the polls.
And I've been watching the polls that average the races, right?
Like 538 is one that comes to mind.
(16:07):
They provide an average rating of all the polls. They take all the polls that
come out and they do an average and see where everybody stands.
The gap is narrow between Harris and Trump.
They're within one point of each other and the margin of error is like 2%. So it's really tight.
And then also RealClearPolitics is another one I look at. They do an average
(16:30):
poll. They still show Trump leading in many of the polls.
One of the things I noticed at the beginning of the week, right after she,
like two or three days after she became the, she took up the torch from Biden.
I think they ran like 10 or 15 polls and she was only leading in two.
I just looked at them today and now she's leading in four.
I suspect that we're not going to get a full sounding or feedback from the polls
(16:55):
until about a week or two weeks from the date that Biden dropped out.
Yeah. Then we'll start to see how the because a lot of the polls are based on
still, you know, when she was a hypothetical candidate.
Yes. Now we're going to now she's going to be on the platform.
People are going to be able to see her. There's been huge momentum at the grassroots
levels for, you know, Zoom calls.
And, you know, I think last night there was one hundred fifty thousand women
(17:17):
who got on a Zoom call and raised like an immense amount of money for that hasn't
been accounted for yet in the latest financial rules. So I think we're going
to see a bigger movement.
The question will be, can that sustain? Can she sustain that for three months?
Three months is a short time away, but it can also be a long period away.
(17:37):
Yeah. But I think right now, the way it looks, Harris has got the momentum.
She's got the support of the majority of the Democratic Party.
Right, right, right. And I think I think the Republican strategists in the Republican
campaign for Trump are really trying to figure out how to readjust their course
in order to have a better message and try to and try to not allow her to be the,
(18:00):
you know, the next president of the United States.
Well, sure. Of course. Now, I'd also read recently that new voter registrations
took a nice little jump in the last few days. Yes.
And the voter registration has jumped with the youth and with minorities.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so that was lacking in the Biden campaign, if you remember.
(18:24):
Right, right. Not a lot of youths were voting. And I think she's gonna get,
she's got implicit endorsement from a lot of media stars, Taylor Swift, for example.
All those Swifties come out and said, you know, you know, all the Swifties be coming out to vote.
And, you know, the comment from the vice president about cat ladies and stuff
(18:46):
certainly didn't help help in that regard for the Republicans.
And so, yeah, I think the other thing that that that really stands out is a
lot of a lot of new women voters, too.
And I think it still has to deal with the reproductive care. Absolutely.
Issue. And the fact that if you have one party who wants to reduce or get rid
(19:06):
of that right for 51 percent of our population, and then you have another party
who wants to enshrine it in law so that they can have it.
So if you're a young woman and you're thinking about having a family,
which party are you going to vote for?
You know, our youth, like I mentioned in our last podcast, they're smart.
(19:29):
They know where their interest lies and which parties really support their interests
and which parties are trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
I've talked to several of the young women in my family and my students, and they all agree.
Point to the fact that they realize that their rights are in jeopardy right
now if the Republican Party takes over, that they'll lose that right.
(19:52):
And they're concerned about what other rights that they'll lose.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And I know there was just recently a meeting of Democratic women of Kamala County,
and they had a bunch of new people show up that had not been there before.
So we're definitely sparking some interest, particularly over reproductive rights.
Absolutely. And so I think what we're going to also see, I saw a message from
(20:16):
our county Democratic chair where they were originally voting on.
We had an influx of money to be able to put billboards up. We didn't really
put billboards in our area.
Right, right. For the 2020 election. I think we got one up.
But overnight, we've got like, I don't know how much money exactly it was,
but it was enough to get at least one billboard up, maybe more. And more may be coming.
(20:41):
And I don't think we raised enough money last time to get one up until about
a month prior to the election.
We're three months out, and so we already raised enough money to get at least
one up and probably with a good message on it.
I suspect that the local Kamal party will be able to raise more money and get
maybe a couple more billboards up in key areas along 46 Corridor,
(21:03):
the 281 Corridor, and the 35 Corridor going north from New Bronzeville.
I think there's some good key locations where we can get a good message out for Kamala Harris.
Absolutely. Yes, there's talk to some people say, well, is three months really enough time?
But I think in some countries they have as little as a month or even,
(21:24):
you know, less time than that to for presidential candidates to campaign.
The recent example was France when they called the flash elections recently.
I think they did it within a month and it looked like the extreme right in the
French was going to take over. But all it did was eluded the political power.
The left came out actually even stronger.
The further left came out actually stronger than the moderates.
(21:46):
Kind of lost power and then the rights didn't gain as much power as they thought.
But the point of the matter is that they were able to knock that out within
a month. I think we're able to do it within three months as well.
We've already got the delegates chosen. That was the most important part for the state conventions.
And I think that's what people tend to forget is that the structure for our
elections is already in place.
(22:07):
The primary was just to select delegates and allow them to choose who to vote for.
Now that the conditions have changed, the delegates are still there.
We just, they just have to make up their mind of who they're going to support.
And I think that that's, I think that they, they've done that.
Absolutely. You know, when we talk about the polls, I mean, they always say,
you know, how accurate are polls really?
(22:27):
It's always plus or minus three points. I mean, it's really hard to judge just by reading polls.
The key indicators for our, you know, your listening audience to look for in
the polls is the date that it was, it was done.
How, how relevant house, you know, is it, was it over a week ago or was it recently?
What's the number of people who voted in? You at least want to have between
(22:49):
2,000 to 5,000 more is better. But then also the margin of error.
If it's a wide margin of error, like we're talking six to 10 point spread,
that means that it could swing within 10 percentage points up or down.
And that's not a very reliable poll. The tighter the margin of error,
two to 3%, those are the industry standards.
(23:11):
And so be cognizant of those polls that are published by other sources,
and look at the fine details.
And they usually, if they don't put the margin of error, be suspect.
If they list the margin of error, pay attention to the margin of error, and they can tell you.
Then the other thing I would tell you about polls, given how hard it is to poll,
it takes a lot of money for polling organizations to try to reduce bias and
(23:39):
try to get the right numbers.
And so they are not as accurate.
The only polls that you can really pay attention to are the ones that come on the ballot box.
That and maybe, maybe the donations, right?
People vote with their money and with their feet. And the amount of money that
Harris has raised over the last week is certainly significant.
(24:00):
And I don't think it correlates well with how she looks right now in the polls.
And I think it's going to be a leading indicator, meaning that it's showing
us what's going to happen in the future. chair.
I think we're going to see a huge bump in her polls in the next couple of weeks.
But again, the only polls that you can really rely on are the ones that happen at the ballot box.
(24:21):
Yeah, I think you're right. And I think you're right. And I think we'll see
a jump after the convention as well. Right. All right. Well, Dr.
Leonard Leroy, we appreciate you offering some clarification on some of these
issues that, like we have said, just have only happened, you know,
less than a handful of times in our history.
Absolutely. You're welcome. Thanks for having me on.
(25:10):
Music.
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