Predictions for the GOP Primary, Starting In New Hampshire

Jennifer breaks down her predictions for the Republican GOP primary, which states Trump already has a hold on, and why it's important for political campaigns to be surrounded in truth and positive messages instead of misinformation and slander.

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Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Is it just me? Or havewe all lost our minds? It's a
question I've been asking myself on repeatfor the last eight years, and I
know I'm not alone in that.Is it the politics, is it the
culture? Or am I just gettingold? Hi? I'm Jennifer Horn and
I'm a former Republican strategist and partyleader turned independent sanity activists. I decided

(00:24):
to do this podcast so we couldexplore these questions. I'll bring experts to
the table from politics and media andculture. We'll have road insightful conversations with
the clear goal of getting to thebottom of it all. One way or
another. We've all lost our minds, and I hope you'll join us on
the journey to find them again.Hi, this is Jennifer Horn and you're

(00:47):
listening to Is it just me?Or have we all Lost our minds?
So? It's Wednesday, January seventeenth. The Iowa caucus is there a couple
of days behind us. The NewHampshire primary is less than a week ahead
of us, and I thought thiswould be a good time to stop and
share some thoughts and kind of gatherourselves a little bit as we prepare to

(01:07):
take the next step into the Republicanprimary. I've got a few different things
i want to share with you,and eventually we'll get to really kind of
digging into New Hampshire as well.So for starters, you know, in
my experience there is there are acouple of principles that are just rooted in
human nature that always influence every campaign. And they might seem like they can

(01:32):
be kind of contradictory to each other, but they I see this over and
over and over again. They absolutelyboth apply in every every race I've ever
ever seen, watched, or beenpart of. The First is that everybody
wants to be with the winner.You know, they're they're they're kind of
trying to time it, they're waitingit out, They're watching the polls,

(01:53):
they're you know, who's got thebiggest crowds, who's getting the most media
coverage. They want they want tothey want to be with the winner.
I think it's just instinct. Well, people want to be part of the
winning team and so and I thinkthat that is something that absolutely has a
significant influence on people, especially folkswho tend not to get involved early on

(02:15):
choosing a specific campaign to be apart of, and they want to be
able to say, you know,all, I always knew he was going
to win. I was with himfrom the start. I was always going
to vote for her. There's just, you know, there's just something that's
affirming, self affirming about being ableto say that you voted for the guy
who ultimately won. Then the otherone that I also think is this kind

(02:38):
of part of human instinct is oncesomeone does get involved in a campaign,
once they you know, volunteer,hold a you know, hold a sign
at the corner, or put asign in their front yard, or spend
an afternoon phone banking for somebody,or you know, sign up sign up

(02:58):
on a list. Once they dothat, I think they tend to become
really invested in that individual, regardlessof whether or not. And again this
is it seems contradictory to what Ijust said a minute ago, but but
I think that both are true regardlessof whether whether or not they're at the
top of the polls, regardless ofwhether or not people are predicting that they

(03:20):
will be the winner. No matterhow hard, you know, they seem
to have to fight to get anyattention. Once you invest even a little
bit of yourself into a campaign,those people tend to be very loyal,
and they're in it till the end, whether or not they all vote for
the person that they are volunteering for, you know, when push comes to

(03:44):
shove at the very last minute,if things, you know, look really
obvious that they're going to go anotherway. I don't know. There's some
you know, a lot of psychologicaldebate and disagreement about that as well.
But once a human being invests somepart of themselves into another effort, uh,
they tend to stay with that tillthe end. So those are two

(04:04):
just two things to think about asyou're asking yourself over and over again,
things like, you know, whywould someone wote for Nicky Haley? Why
would someone wote for Donald Trump?How? You know, why do these
poll numbers change? How can shebe up one day and down the next?
Uh? You know, all thesedifferent all these different pieces that of
a of a campaign that we alltry to follow, you know, especially

(04:27):
for those of us who are notdirectly inside a particular campaign, you know,
trying to measure the progress of candidatesin these different manners. And and
I think that we can see prettyobviously the influence of these two you know
kind of these two principles when youonce you think about it, it's kind
of obvious when you think about itand you examine various campaigns. So we

(04:49):
look at this campaign and then let'syou know, those are kind of these
esoteric uh, you know, likeprinciples of humanity, uh, that we're
talalking about. But there are alsosome very very practical things that influence a
campaign as well. And as muchas nobody ever likes to admit this,
we all hate to see it,but money is that probably the greatest influence,

(05:14):
especially the higher up you go,running for Congress, running for Senate,
running for president. If you don'thave the money to get your message
out, then it becomes extremely difficultto get any traction at all. It's
not impossible, and there's always youknow, this tension between you know what
comes first, you need to raisea bunch of money, which means being

(05:38):
able to convince people sort of behindthe scenes that you can win and get
them directing you a check in advance, or you're working really hard on the
ground and pushing it as far asyou can, trying to create some of
some more organic momentum. And thenas you start to make some progress,
and you get more media coverage andyou show up in the polls, then

(06:00):
people seem like they're ready to they'remore willing to write you check and add
to your and to your finances.At that point, you know kind of
you know, push to what comesfirst, you know, the chicken or
the egg, And in politics itgoes both ways. So watching Nikki Heley,
which is all of our focus atthis point now, is on Nikki
Helly and Donald Trump. And actually, let's let's take care of rond de

(06:24):
Santis before we get into Niki Helly, because Rondo Santis should have had a
much stronger second place finish in Iowa. I don't know why it is.
Excuse me, I don't know whyit is that there are still people who
don't understand this. But Trump wasalways going to win Iowa. He's going

(06:45):
to in New Hampshire's going to winSouth Carolina. We can get into that
in a minute. But DeSantis wasnever going to win Iowa. But he
did have the backing of their governor, he had the support of her network
across the state. He had raisedover undred and fifty million dollars, you
know, and spent one hundred andfifty million dollars. You know, I

(07:06):
really disliked the last debate that wasjust Nicky Healey and Rond de Santis.
I thought it was became so personaland ugly and mean and not merely the
demeanor that I would want from,you know, a presidential debate in our
country. But she was right whenshe said that he had mismanaged his funds.

(07:30):
He had raised an extraordinary amount ofmoney, much more than she did,
and and and it was just foolishand how he spent it. And
then it showed he got to Iowaand she had managed to find a way
to just about catch up with him, and he didn't. He didn't have
enough of the resources to be toreally push it. So so he came

(07:51):
in second, but it was aclose second. He is not going to
come anywhere near it, you know. I think when in New Hampshire,
he's probably the single digit, possiblyvery low single digit. I'm not sure
he's not going to accomplish anything inSouth Carolina if he even stays in the
race all the way to South Carolina. So let's set him aside now.

(08:13):
So it really has become a racethat is about It's not a two person
race. I think Nicky Healley wasa little bit arrogant to say that in
Iowa. But it has come downto us focusing on these two candidates,
Nicki Haley and Donald Trump. SoNicki Haley, you would think would be
the person who attracts the attention ofany anti Trump person voting in these Republican

(08:37):
primaries. But if that was thecase, you have to ask yourself,
why isn't she giving him a realrun for his money. Why isn't she
neck and neck? Why isn't ityou know, fifty one and forty nine
or something like that. And abig part of that is that there were
other candidates in the race and theywere all sort of taking their little piece
of it. But it's also because, again one of these truths that a

(09:01):
lot of people just don't want toaccept is that Donald Trump is not ahead
because he's a better campaigner, orbecause he has more money in the race,
or because he's loyal to, youknow, people in certain states,
or because of anything that he accomplishedor didn't accomplish. He is where he

(09:22):
is right now because he has createda character of himself that the Republican Party
loves. It's that simple. Wecan't understand why most of us it seems
very destructive in so many ways.But today's Republican voters, not just the
party, not just the leaders.It's not just the R and C and

(09:45):
the county committees and the state committees. The primary voters, the people who
make up the base of the party, love the idea of this strong man
leader who can literally get away withanything, who will be nominated in spite
of the fact that he's got overninety charges against him, in spite of

(10:07):
the fact that he has been,you know, in court determined to be
have raped a woman. You know, you can go through all the different
in spite of his admiration of dictatorsaround the world, his cooperation with them,
his you know, copying the languageof dictators of the past. We

(10:28):
go through all the things that normallywould make you say, of course,
this person could never win. Thereis something about that combination that Republicans today
love. They're going to vote forhim, They're going to nominate him.
They are going to show up,whether it's you know, whether the streets
are flooded or there's a blizzard,or you know, people are ice skating

(10:52):
down the middle of the road toget to the bowling places. They are
going to show up, not becausethey love Republicanism, not because they're loyal
to their party, and is forTrump, and we have to find a
way to accept that. Otherwise there'sa very good chance that he could actually
become president again. That's a conversationfor another day. So Nikkihay is in

(11:22):
second place. She's the only onewho has any chance anyway of any kind.
I'm getting anywhere near him, ButI'm here to tell you she's not
going to And I know that that'sreally discouraging for people who still hang on
to the idea that someday Trump willbe gone and they can get their Republican
Party back. But the Republican Partywill never be the same again, even

(11:45):
if it's possible to get it backand take it away from the ugliness of
people like Marjorie Taylor Green and JimJordan and the whole crew, It'll never
be the same again. So Iguess I don't know why I keep emphasizing
that. I guess I just thinkit's so important that we live in the
truth, and that we attack froma point of truth, and that we

(12:09):
organize from a point of truth.Otherwise we will have no success at trying
to preserve what really is best aboutour nation. So Nicky Hilly's in this
race. There was today what isthe day when we're seeing the first post
Iowa polls, And one just cameout from Suffolk University. They partner with

(12:31):
Boston NBC and doing all these polls, and they tend to be pretty consistently
accurate. So they're showing Donald Trumpat fifty percent, they're showing Nicki Heilly
at thirty four percent. I thinkit showed the Scantis had something crazy like
five percent. That almost doesn't seempossible, but I believe that's the number.

(12:52):
And then there's gonna be another onethat's going to come out this afternoon
from leaving Hahampshire Institute of Politics overat St. Nanselm College. We haven't
seen that yet, but I suspectit's going to be very similar. If
anything, I think it'll show theTrump over fifty percent and Nikki Haley under
thirty four percent. And so thequestion kind of is why didn't she get

(13:15):
a boost from her performance in Iowa. She did much better than anticipated.
She wasn't even campaigning there until afterAmericans for prosperity, and the Koch Brothers
put a tremendous amount of money intosupporting her. It was their money and
them pushing the message that got herwhere she is to begin with both the

(13:35):
New Hampshire and IOWA. But whydid it that Iowa's success It is comparatively
limited success, but success all thesame. Why didn't that translate into pushing
her up in these post IOWA pollsin New Hampshire. Well, for a
couple of reasons. The first isthat her message stinks and I hate to

(13:58):
use that word, but her message, and I'll tell you why, it
is so unauthentic. It's dishonest,it's unethical. I've called it unethical.
First, she had this message,vote for me because I can win.
She wanted you to take the ideathat there were one or two national polls
she onces ago that showed her beatingJoe Biden, and that that was all

(14:22):
she wanted you to think about.That was going to be. She didn't
want to talk about Donald Trump,she didn't want to talk about, you
know, too much detail on policies. She was really trying to protect herself
and that it got her. Itgot her along a ways. It got
her ways along, but it's notenough and she knows that, which is
why on election night in Iowa shepivoted and tried to kind of pivot to

(14:43):
this new message. But here's thedeal again, it's a very unauthentic message.
On election night in Iowa, shetalked about the chaos of Donald Trump
again, but tried to kind oflump him up with Joe Biden. She
tried to make it one, youknow, kind of consistent message for the
primary and the general. Americans don'twant another rematch between Biden and Trump.

(15:09):
Americans don't want a couple of eightyyear olds buying for the White House.
Americans don't want the chaos and thedivision that come with Trump and Biden.
And she's right, I think thata good number of the majority Americans don't
want them. However, it's agarbage message for her campaign. And here's

(15:30):
why she's trying to create equivalency betweenthese two people that the American people know
very well. There's nobody in ourcountry who doesn't know who Joe Biden and
who Biden is, and who doesn'tknow who Donald Trump is, and she
wants voters to think that they're oneand the same. You know, voting
for one is like voting for theother. So you need something really different.
You need a younger person, afemale person, a more moderate person,

(15:54):
a you know, like you Kayof goes, so you can go
through a whole bunch of kind ofexternal differences. And she's hoping that that
will do the trick the same waythat she that you know, she tried
with the original message going through theprimary. But the idea of creating equivalency
between these two is simply too faraf fetched. And even if you love

(16:14):
Donald Trump, you know there's noequivalency between him and Joe Biden, and
the other way around as well.And if you're somebody who dislikes them both,
you know there's no equivalency. Ifyou're somebody who's already decided for sure
who you're going to vote for Novemberfor the presidency, everybody knows there's no
equivalency. And here's why Joe Bidendid not take ten million dollars into his

(16:40):
private business operation while serving in theWhite House from China, of all places,
from China, Joe Biden did not, is not has not been convicted
of raping a woman. Joe Bidenis not facing over ninety counts federal accounts

(17:00):
against them, charges against them.Joe Biden did not instigate an insurrection against
the United States of America. Hedid not stand in front of the White
House and called for masses of peopleto march up to the Capitol. He
did not sit in the White Houseand watch as those people literally destroyed parts

(17:22):
of our United States Capitol building,as people were shot, somebody was shot,
as people were injured and damaged,as Capitol police, you know,
all the things that we all sawwith their own eyes watching it all on
DV, that Trump watched from theWhite House, refusing to call for help.
Joe Biden didn't do any of that. He didn't do any of that.

(17:47):
He didn't try to steal an election. He didn't lie and cheat his
way into the White House. Hedid not call a Secretary of State and
ask them to fabricate numbers for theelection outcome in Georgia. He did not
call a foreign leader I try tobribe that person into influencing the outcome of

(18:08):
an American presidential election. He didnot try to block the peaceful transfer of
power. These are all things thatare facts that have happened in real life
right before our eyes. And whilethere's still a shocking number of American voters
who deny the truth and who embracethe you know, the the untruth of

(18:33):
Trump and embrace the the reprehensible natureof him as a man and a president,
and who refused to acknowledge the grossinstability of his emotional and mental health
and are going to stay with him. But there are enough people out there

(18:56):
who embrace the truth that Nicky Healysimply cannot make the argument of equivalency between
the two. So that is justnot going to work for her as a
message. Now, the last pieceof this, I guess would be the
other problem that she has in tryingto become the nominees for the party is

(19:19):
that actually there are two. Solet's see if I can remember to cover
them both here. The first isthat she does not confront Donald Trump.
She doesn't just ignore the truth andnot confront the truth. She refuses to
confront Donald Trump himself. And asmuch as I've always embraced the idea that

(19:40):
campaigns should be positive and uplifting andkind of inspirational, you know, they
should be about what, you know, a positive forward message, what you
can do what you can bring,you know, how can you uplift the
entire community with your plans and yourthoughts and your experience. Campaigns also have
to be about why not the otherperson? It can't just be why me?

(20:06):
It has to be why not him? And like every other Republican out
there, she has made a consciouschoice not to make the argument of why
not Trump? And she does thatfrom a stance of cowardice and lack of
ethics. She knows what she's sayingis false. She knows that if Donald

(20:29):
Trump becomes president, it will beextremely dangerous for each of us as citizens
and for our democracy as a whole. You know, she knows that he
is a person of division and hate, but refuses to call out call the
truth. She refuses to call thetruth the truth because she knows that she

(20:49):
needs his voters if she gets nominated, She's going to need his voters to
become president. I find that reprehensibleas well. Nobody who is afraid of
the truth should ever hold deal alloffice. It would make her too dangerous
as well. So none of usshould be looking at Nikki Haley and thinking

(21:15):
that she's somehow going to be thesavior that she's the one is going to
you know, save us from Trumpor save the Republican Party from Trump.
And as we go into New Hampshire, now, you know, to talk
about the specifics of New Hampshire veryquickly. Just now. Hampshire is very
much a more moderate state. Itis a state that voters, regardless of

(21:38):
their affiliation to party or lack thereofall the voters in New Hampshire consider themselves
independent in some way, independent thinkers. They say, they you know,
they pick who they think is theright person, not who the party tells
them is the right person, orwho you know, who the community or
the neighbors sell them is the rightperson. Everybody makes their own decision.
It's also a small state, whichis one of the reasons why it's first

(22:00):
of the nation's status really is sovaluable to the rest of the country because
these candidates come to New Hampshire andevery single that's probably about one point three
million people who live in the state, every single one of them can meet
every single candidate who comes in thedoor if they choose, and a very
large percentage of them, do youknow, they the voters are very accessible

(22:23):
to the candidates. Candidates are veryaccessible to the voters. So when we
get to this point where all eyesare on New Hampshire, most of the
people you see being interviewed on TVare being included in the town hall audiences
and the focus kriptional. They've actuallybeen engaged. They've been to rallies and
town halls and speeches and they've hada chance to ask questions, and they've

(22:47):
been to people's living rooms to youmeet candidates up close and personal. And
New Hampshire is really valuable because youdon't have to have that one hundred and
fifty million dollars in the in yourbank up front in order to be a
candidate. It's a small state,it's easy to get around, it's easy
to get to. You know,you can't you know, John McCain was

(23:07):
nearly broke this summer before he becamethe nominee and he took Southwest flights from
d C up to up to NewHampshire by himself, and you know,
carried his own suitcase, as everybodylikes to talk about. So it's it's
it's a state where you know,when once we hit primary day, the

(23:30):
candidates have been really aggressively vetted.So the outcome is pretty sincere, you
know, which is again a littledistressing under the circumstances when you realize that
the Republicans of New Hampshire are aboutto give Donald Trump an overwhelming victory in

(23:51):
their state. The other thing aboutNew Hampshire that's interesting and has an impact
here is that we don't call ourvoters independent. We call them undeclared.
In undeclared voters can go into thevoting booth on election day and choose a
ballot for the Republican Party or theDemocrat Party and place there, you know,
make their vote, and that canhave an impact. Independents tend to

(24:15):
be more moderate. They tend tohave kind of consistent voting patterns. An
undeclared voter who an undeclared voter ishas likely got a record that shows that
they vote Republican where they tend tovote Democrat, even though they don't want
to affiliate with the party they seemto have. They tend to develop consistent

(24:40):
voting records, but they can havea real influence. They do have a
real influence on the outcome of theseprimaries. People who are real party people,
you know, who think that thekeeping the party alive is the most
important thing. They don't like thatundeclared voters can vote in the part primaries.
A a lot of them want toclose the primaries. I oppose that.

(25:02):
I think making primaries accessible to morevoters is a good thing. I
know a lot of people out theredisagree with me. That's okay. And
then this year, the undeclared votersand the Democrats are kind of in a
funny spot because the Democrats the DNCdecided they were not going to start their

(25:25):
primary race in New Hampshire. Theyare going to start it in South Carolina.
And what they may or may notreally understand is that we're in New
Hampshire. We don't place ourselves firston the calendar for fun. We place
ourselves first on the calendar because it'sin our constitution. There's nothing we can
do about it. The R andC could do the same thing that the
DNC is doing right now, wewould still be having this primary today before

(25:51):
anybody else has. You know,the language in our constitution I believe is
a same or similar event. Thecaucuses come before us can come before us
because they're not a primary. It'svery very different process that they use at
a caucus and this year because theDNC has withdrawn from participating in New Hampshire

(26:11):
as we have scheduled it, oras they have scheduled that. I don't
actually lived in New Hampshire anymore,Obviously, I take great pride in my
time there and I continue to identifywith them, but the Democrats have decided
not to participate in our primary inthat way. But now, at the
last minute, suddenly there is aDemocratic Party led effort to have Joe Biden

(26:37):
written in on primary day on theDemocratic palot. I can understand that they
want to show strength, they wantto show that Biden is their guy and
that he can beat anybody else thatthe Republicans put forward. But you know
what a weird, stupid, twistedcircumstances have created for themselves. So that's

(27:02):
that's kind of all of it forme. I will take a moment to
tell you that my prediction is thatDonald Trump will win the primary in New
Hampshire with a significant but by asignificant margin. He will get in excess
of fifty percent of the vote.And wow, I don't want to exactly
call a number for Nikki Yaily,but she's if she's the If the New

(27:25):
Hampshire in Student Politics pulled this afternoonshows her as low as Suffolk does,
if she's at thirty five, thirtytwo something, you know, low thirties
or thirty, then I think youshould expect her to end up right around
there, right around thirty percent onelection day. So that is my update,
my you know when I sort ofmy nutshown version, but poy it

(27:48):
went a lot longer than we expectedit to date. In a met thank
you for listening in. Let meclose with a sincere and positive thought for
you, as a crazy as itreally feels right now, as much as
we all feel like everybody around ushas lost their minds and maybe we're losing
our minds as well, this isthe democratic process that our founding fathers laid

(28:11):
out for us. It's the democraticprocess that has served us well throughout the
history of our nation. We don'talways get the result that we want,
none of us do, none ofus do you know, Republicans, Democrats,
liberals, conservatives, progressives, ultraright, alright, you know,
nobody gets the results they want everytime. But it is a process that

(28:33):
honors the voice of the individual.And as long as we all continue to
fight to protect that because you know, voter rights is another issue that we
haven't covered on this podcast yet,but we will during this git. During
this election cycle, there's always aneffort from somebody, it seems, to
take our voice away from us.One of the charges against Donald Trump is

(28:57):
against him for trying to I forgetthe exact language, but essentially for trying
to suppress the vote, for tryingto take the voice away from individuals in
our country in the twenty twenty election. So remember that that's the case.
That it is a strong system.We are a strong democracy. We are

(29:18):
facing great challenges at this time,and we will continue to for some time
ahead. But if you and Istay committed to what we're doing, to
pushing back to being the defense,to being the wall, and not allowing
that alt right influence to take overto win, let's make this an election

(29:40):
where Donald Trump doesn't just lose toJoe Biden, but that it loses in
a landslide. We can do thatif we continue to have these conversations,
continue to educate ourselves, and remainas involved as we possibly can be.
So thank you for tuning in today. I will definitely be back after the
Hampshire Primary, and we'll kind ofpick it apart and see how close I

(30:04):
came or how far away I cameto what was really going to happen.
I thank you for being part ofthis. I thank you for caring as
much as I do about the futureof our country and the world our kids
are going to live in. Thisis Jennifer Horne you're listening to. Is
it just me? Or have weall lost our minds?