Election Eve Weekend Nerd Spectacular
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Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, and this is our last episode before Election Day. And so we've got a very special episode for you today. It is a twist on the Focus Group. Instead of talking to a group of voters, I'm going to have four conversations with some of the nerdiest political nerds I could find to talk to me about the most important dynamics of Tuesday's election.

We're going to start by checking in on what is happening in the crucial swing state of Nevada by welcoming back to the pod John Ralston, the Dean of the Nevada Press Corps. John, thank you for being here again.

Sarah, it's a pleasure to be here. And I wanted to just say really quickly, some people, like my stepdaughter, doesn't like being called a nerd. I love it. Oh, that's the highest compliment I can pay. I know that. And I got to tell you, from one political nerd to another, I am following you like a psychopath. I'm reading every word of your blog where you are breaking down the mail returns. And I appreciate that you try to tell us. We still don't know anything. It's

But every kernel, every crumb for people like us, I think, I don't know, we can't help ourselves. So I'm just going to set this up really quickly. Then I want to get into what you're seeing in the early vote count there. So the governor and Senate race in Nevada, they're just both nail biters. And as we discussed last time, all of the ills of the last couple of years, inflation, COVID, crime, they hit Nevada especially hard.

And Nevada is also the ground zero for the Hispanic voter shift toward the GOP. And then you've also got this like insane secretary of state candidate that I know you have strong feelings about. But you have been tracking these early votes. Can you just explain like how this works in your state? Like, what is it that you're getting? I understand like there's mail coming in, but like, how are you getting this data? Yeah.

Well, it's a really good question. And it goes to the heart of why, you know, a lot of analysts this time of year say, don't pay attention to the early vote. It doesn't mean that much. It's not that predictive. But it is in Nevada. And since I've been tracking this, like the political nerd that I am for a decade and a half, Sarah, there are daily reports of

who has voted. And when I say who has voted, I mean the party and their name. I'm not really interested in the names, but I am interested in the party because it's pretty predictive in Nevada of what the actual vote will look like. And if you consider that in a normal year, two thirds of the vote is cast before election day, you can model certain things off of that and you can make predictions off of that.

I wish that were the case this year, by the way, Sarah, but this is the hardest year since I've started doing this to predict, at least not yet, what's going to happen. And is it because you just can't tell which way the Indies are going to go? Like, what is it that's making it so hard to predict, particularly this year? I'm never completely sure which way Indies are going to go or who the Indies are in this cycle compared to other cycles. But that's only part of the problem, right?

As you know, Nevada just instituted universal mail ballots to everybody in 2020 because of the pandemic. And then the Democratic-controlled legislature voted to keep it that way. And so the only parallel that we have in terms of voting patterns with a lot of mail is 2020. And there is...

There is not a lot of mail this time. Now, I expected there to be less, right? It's not a presidential year, but it's coming in very erratically and very slowly. And most of the people I talked to and I came to this conclusion myself, Sarah, is I thought the turnout would be some pretty high fraction of 2020.

where it was about 80%. I thought it might be as high as 70% or at least in the mid 60s. And now it looks like we may not even get to 60% because there seems to be less mail and people seem to be unclear about why. That is, is it a post office issue? Is there a backlog? People aren't sure, although I think it's the former, not the latter. You think it's a post office issue?

I do because, you know, I have good relationships with the people who are counting these in the county here in Clark County where 70% of the vote is. And they say they're processing everything they get every day. And the numbers are just astronomically lower than they were in 2020. I mean, not just from a presidential year to a midterm year, but just a huge drop off. And by the way, that is a problem for the Democrats overall.

who are dominating the mail every time it comes in by almost a two to one margin, while the Republicans are winning the early vote, the in-person vote, by a somewhat less margin, but the turnout there is more robust. Is it possible that maybe just people aren't using as much mail because the pandemic's not a thing as much and they're going to go vote on election day or they're voting in person?

I wish I could give you a definitive answer to it. And as you know, around this time of year, not only do we as political nerds want to have definitive answers, but the people who read us or listen to us say, come on, just tell me who's going to win. And I just, I don't know the answer to that question. There's a lot of speculation about election day turnout. Let me just tell you the figure from 2020, the first year that we had mail balloting here, 11%

only turned out on election day of the total electorate that voted in 2020. And Republicans did very well on election day as they generally do.

There is some thought, and I think by Democrats hope, that Democrats, because there isn't a pandemic, as you said, are going to go back to voting in person. And a lot of people do like to vote on Election Day. I have to tell you, my gut tells me that's not what's going to happen, Sarah, but I wouldn't say definitively it's not. Well, why does your gut think that?

Because it seems to me that all the winds are blowing against the Democrats here. And the machine that the Democrats have erected here, which is the best in the country, probably has been doing everything it can with the help of the Culinary Union, which I'll remind your listeners is the biggest union in the state, has 60,000 members, half of them are more Hispanic, has been working really, really hard to get

the vote out. And I just don't think any of that is geared toward a big election day turnout. And I think more Republicans want to vote on election day than Democrats. Now, again, I have said this many times, too, and I hate to sound like the man with caveats, but this is an apple year and all the rest have been oranges that I've covered.

Just to go back to your thing about the post office, though, is what you're saying there, they're just being so slow with the mail? Because I saw this on your blog. Suddenly the mailman came and there was this big influx of mail. Is it possible that that could continue to happen and they just come in and like...

more janky than they usually do? I think janky is the most accurate scientific word to describe it, Sarah, because it has been very erratic this time compared to the predictability of 2020 with the mail balloting. And I can tell you, I don't know of a person on either side and smart strategist on either side who isn't surprised at either the

erratic mail returns or the volume being so far down. Most people thought there would be about 1.1 million voters turning out in Nevada out of the 1.8 million registered. I wouldn't be surprised if it's down to a million or maybe even a little less, and that's in the 60% range.

But here's the thing. We have to remember this. And this is what the Democrats are hoping for, is that the mail can continue to come in until four days after the election, as long as it's postmarked by November 8th. Now, that's good for the Democrats. It may be bad in the sense that if these races are very close, as you and I have been talking about, and the Republicans are slightly ahead on election night, and then mail starts to come in, you can imagine what that's going to look like.

So when you're talking to Democrats there, are they losing their minds? What's the vibe? If you just went by Twitter, which no one should ever do, yes, they're losing their minds. But the more experienced ones are more like, John, don't write our obit yet. We're in the game. And I think that's the best description. They only have about a point and a half lead statewide in the ballots return, which is low for the so-called read machine here. But that organization still exists and it's

Tilted very much toward male Return so that is why I think They're puzzled and hopeful that The male will stop its janky Pattern and pick up a more regular Pattern starting very soon

And can you just explain to the listeners, because I've been finding it pretty interesting, you talk about it in terms of like Democrats need to build a wall to kind of come up against like the rural votes and then the in-person. Can you explain both the geography and how you're thinking about that firewall? What does that mean?

John, can you please nerd out for a few minutes? Well, if you insist, Sarah. So Nevada, as I've talked before, is essentially three states with Clark County, Las Vegas having 70% of the vote, Washoe County or Reno, the other urban area, having about 15, 18% of the vote. And then the rest is in the 15 rural counties, which are all deep red. What the democratic machine has been able to do successfully in every cycle, at least since 2008,

2008, with only one exception, that was 2014, is built what I call a firewall in Clark County of banked Democratic votes. And they have such a big lead of predictable Democratic voters by Election Day that you can't make up for it in either Election Day or the votes cast in the rest of the state.

because there are so many more votes in Clark County than anywhere else. The issue this time is that there is not huge turnout in Clark County. Therefore, the Democratic lead is not that great. The firewall, which was 47,000 by the end of early voting in the last midterm, is only about 23,000, 24,000 right now. So that is not a good sign for them.

Okay. Well, one of the things I really wanted to follow up with you on is the Secretary of State race, because I got to tell you, so in the sea of...

I think terrible candidates on the Republican side who are election deniers. You know, Kerry Lake is looking very formidable in Arizona. Herschel Walker looks like he's going to be able to take that thing to a runoff. But one sort of bright spot, I think, is that at least in the polling, some of these really horrible secretary of state candidates, Jim Marchant being one of them, but Mark Fincham, another one in Arizona, they're polling behind Republicans

The governor's candidates, like, which is odd, right? It's like odd that people would even know anything about the secretary of state race. How is the secretary of state race looking to you?

I'll answer that question in a second. But since you did the lead in that you did, I want to make it clear to everyone listening that it is not partisan at all to suggest that some of these terrible candidates and they're almost all on the Republican side who are election deniers or conspiracy theorists or just plain kooky. It's dangerous to elect them to public office.

I think if you're a Republican or Democrat or an independent, you should be really worried about that, especially considering what happened after 2020. I'm sorry to get up on my soapbox for a second there. No, preach, brother. So the bottom line is with Marshawn, Marshawn is all of those things. He's an election denier. He's a conspiracy theorist. He's a kook. I've said in many places that he's maybe the most dangerous person ever on a Nevada ballot. Listen, I have not seen a poll where he is losing

which is very disturbing to me. Now, there are a third of the voters undecided. They have finally in the last few weeks run some really good negative ads exposing him for who he is. But the real danger for people who are worried about election deniers here in this state, and we have more than just Marchant, is if there ends up being some kind of red wave in Nevada, the

Sarah, you and I listen to focus groups where nobody here knew what the Secretary of State did or who the candidates were. So if it's just partisan voting patterns taking over, Jim Marchand can get elected. And I think that's very worrisome. Very worrisome. And I guess from all the early mail, you can't tell anything about Hispanics or can you from the geography? Is there any any way to tell?

You really can't tell that much. And there is a phenomenon in Nevada, which may or may not exist elsewhere, where Hispanics tend to decide late. At least a significant percentage of Hispanics tend to decide late. Now, in the Senate race, Catherine Cortez Masto, who has not worn her heritage on her sleeve, has unmasked.

changed what she wears on her sleeves during the election cycle, which may or may not be a coincidence. And they are making direct appeals. The Republicans also, though, have spent more money than I've ever seen trying to get Hispanics to move away from the Democratic Party.

I've seen a lot of polling on this, Sarah. Some of it shows Catherine Cortez Masto underperforming with Hispanics. And by underperforming with Hispanics, I mean significantly under 60%, which is, I think, what she needs to get. But there's other more recent polling that indicates she may be hitting her marks there. But as far as the turnout, I just don't know.

Well, and this is where I thought that maybe Cisco Aguilar, who was running against Jim Barchant for secretary of state, maybe people don't think this way. I was like, well, you know, he's Hispanic. Will that help? Would that give him a little bit of an edge with Hispanic voters? Just like sheer looking at a name and saying, oh, that person's Hispanic. Or do you not see that happening? No.

Well, listen, even though it's said, you know, when white people talk about how Hispanics vote, it's so patronizing to say that Hispanics vote for Hispanics. But it's true of every demographic group. There is a certain percentage who will use identity politics and that's how they will vote. The problem, of course, with Cisco is who is a perfectly reasonable candidate is he has been virtually invisible recently.

to most voters. And so if they see a Hispanic surname when they go and fill out their ballot, are they more likely to vote for him? Certain percentage will be. Will it be enough? I don't know the answer to

Okay. Talk to me about the governor's race. You've got Steve Sisolak, the Democratic incumbent, Joe Lombardo, the Republican, who I think as we discussed last time, he's a bit of a denier, but he's mostly a secret normie. Like he's playing MAGA, but he's like definitely one of the better Republicans out there, just a little bar, but...

You talked a lot the last time about Sisolak, there being some frustration with how he'd handled things like getting people their COVID money and things like that. How do you think that's shaping up? Well, I think that the conventional wisdom on both sides, and there's good reason for it, Sarah, is that Sisolak is running behind Catherine Cortez Masto. Right.

And that Lombardo seems like a more reasonable choice to independent voters and maybe some crossover Democrats because they're so mad at Sisolak than Laxalt does to Catherine Cortez Mastro. If you remember from those focus groups, every single one of those potential swing voters said they would vote against Laxalt, mostly because of his personality.

pro-life position, while there were about a third of them maybe who said they would consider voting for Lombardo because of what I refer to as the COVID hangover. And so I think Democrats are more worried about Sisolak than they are about Catherine Cortez Maslow. They're worried about both.

But I think the worry is much more acute about Sisolak because he's the governor, because he can be blamed for every ill in the state. And they've linked him to Biden, too, fairly or not. And so I think he's probably in more trouble than Catherine Cortez Masto, although I wouldn't be surprised by any matrix in those two races, Sarah, whether both the Democrats lost, both the Democrats won or one and one.

Yeah, but can I ask, and this is my last question before we invite our next guest in to talk Arizona, but I would say people went from kind of being like, oh, Cortez Masto, she's done. Like, that's the seat that gets flipped. To now, like, weirdly, people are, like, slightly more bullish on her and they're much more worried about, I don't know, Georgia, Pennsylvania, some of those other states. Does anything change there? Yeah.

depends what people you're referring to. I hear people on both sides of that. I guess I would say conventional wisdom politicos. I've heard a lot more people say they think she's going to hold on than were saying it four months ago. I think that's certainly true. And I think it's because

And again, you hear this from Republicans who know what's going on as well. She has run a really, really good campaign. Her media has been sharp. She has been ubiquitous, including in the Hispanic community over the last couple of weeks or month. And so that if she can hang on, it's because of her work ethic. And I talked about her being a workhorse, not a show horse. And because her media has been so, so good.

John Ralston, Nevada, it is such an important state. I wish you guys were not on the West Coast. You're going to be behind. It's going to take forever to know what's going on. Actually, I'm sorry. Do you guys get to open the mail early? Like Pennsylvania, they don't do it and it could take forever. What's your counting going to be like? Like when do you think you'll have results? They will open all the mail and the early vote, hopefully relatively early on election night for those of us who live on the best roads.

coast as opposed to where others might live, Sarah. Sure. I would guess that we'll have most of the early vote in and posted by about midnight, maybe earlier. And I have to say, you will know a lot then. And if people want to know what to look for, look at those margins in Clark County. And if Catherine Cortez Masto does not have close to a double digit lead in Clark County, she's in big trouble.

Okay. I just wrote that down. Double digit lead in Clark County. John Ralston, for real this time. Thank you so much for coming on again. It's great to talk to you. Good luck with the next few days. I know they're going to be madness. Thanks. I always enjoy it, Sarah. See you, man.

That was an awesome conversation with John Ralston. And I want you guys to all go check out his blog where he is tracking all of this stuff. It is TheNevadaIndependent.com. Go check it out and follow his mail returns. Okay. Next up, we are going to Arizona. Now, John,

just like in Nevada, all the races there are tight. And the governor and secretary of state races are the races that keep me up at night. And Arizona also has some weird stuff going on, like armed vigilantes watching ballot drop boxes. So I went and found the...

the smartest, most knowledgeable person I could on Arizona, Bram Resnick, the host of Sunday Square Off on KPNX in Phoenix. Bram, my man, thank you for being here. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. I had been pronouncing your name Bram, and my team told me that I have been saying it wrong. That's not unusual. You'll often hear politicians call me Bram because they think it bugs me.

But I get it. It's something you live with with the name Bram. So speaking of politicians that you get into things with. So you and I met when I was out in Arizona and then I saw you go viral. You were kind of mixing it up with Carrie Lake, the scariest governor candidate in the country when you were in Arizona.

when you were giving her a tough time about not answering questions. Just as a setup, you're the political guy out there. You are the face of sort of the political Sunday show. Just tell our listeners what it's been like to cover these races this cycle. We've never faced a challenge like this. And I want to say there are a lot of really talented political reporters in this town, and I'm really lucky to work with them because to some extent we've been support group for each other.

In fact, late last night, one of them was walking up my street as I was walking my dogs. We ended up talking for an hour.

So it's a really good group of people. It's a small place in a lot of ways. So you get to know people pretty well and see them often. What's it been like? Well, I'll put it to you this way. During the primary election, when I was on air reporting on the results of the Republican primary back in August, I said, Karen Taylor Robeson, she was the challenger to Carrie Lake. She wins, you get four more years of Doug Ducey. If Carrie Lake wins, you get four years of Donald Trump.

And so far, that's proved correct. She is like Donald Trump in virtually every aspect. She is a COVID denier. She is an election denier. But at the same time, she has the gifts of a longtime TV anchor as a presenter, as a politician. She is, I think, one of the most charismatic politicians on the stage today. She is also a pugilist. You've heard her attack the media, her favorite reporters.

or favored reporter is somebody who worked for the Gateway Pundit. I probably shouldn't even call him a reporter, but that's Carrie Lake's idea of news. She says it and you repeat it. And so that's been a challenge for us as journalists. And we've never seen anything like it, not just as journalists, but as news organizations. How do you cover this? And how do you cover it? Well, it's challenging. You know, you kind of have to pick your spot. She won't do a one-on-one interview with me.

She early on, she created a viral video of me asking her questions. She claimed I didn't swear to the Pledge of Allegiance at an event, turned that into a viral video. And then several months later, I bought two ads on my TV show showing that viral video. I've never seen that before. Have you? These are politicians and professional trolls.

Yeah, but I think what we face in here in Arizona with the Trumpiest ticket in the country, I believe the statewide ticket has election deniers up and down. And what we have here, what we're dealing with here is the same thing the national media has dealt with with Donald Trump is somebody who will just say things that aren't true. You've got to fact check them. What do you put on air?

And especially when, you know, as journalists, you know, I said this when she put those ads on my show, you know, we don't want to be the story, but she is making us the story. And so the question is, how do you push back without it appearing to be your feelings are being heard? Yeah, right. We're all professionals. This is what you deal with and have dealt with for years, but not to this extent. Since she was in the media for so long, she was a newscaster herself. Do you know her from that world?

Only really the way voters might, which is from watching her on TV. She was a newsreader for 25 years. I don't know of any journalist who thinks of her as a journalist. Since then, I knew of her, knew her reputation and that kind of thing, but never really had any kind of relationship with her. We also knew then the preceding two years that

or so, maybe three years, she had gone far to the right. When you say her reputation, what do you mean? This is based on what I am told by people who have served her in a bar, people who have dealt with her. She was the queen bee and she was somebody who could be a tough person to deal with. I'll add that that skit on Saturday Night Live came pretty close to the mark, sending back 2000 salads,

She thought she was she was in charge. OK, well, let's talk about these sort of individual races. And so Carrie Lake is running against Katie Hobbs, secretary of state. And I have a couple questions related to Katie Hobbs. One is she sort of gambled on this idea that she wasn't going to debate.

When I did the last focus group, and I talked about this when I went on your show, there was a couple people, and at least one guy, he was going to vote for Kelly for Senate, but he was going to vote for Carrie Lake because he was mad Katie Hobbs wouldn't debate. Do you think it was the right call for her not to debate? How do you think that's factoring in with voters? In retrospect, it was a terrible call. This became, rather than having, say, one bad debate night with Carrie Lake two months ago,

This became a story that doesn't end. Even I think CNN was talking about it the other night. This story had legs. Her campaign certainly didn't anticipate. And frankly, those of us in the media didn't anticipate, but it just wouldn't end because Carrie Lake helped it not end. And then Katie Hobbs then got an interview she wasn't supposed to get based on the agreement between the debate organizer and the debate broadcaster. So that was a whole other story.

It's probably something she could have shook off, but it just came to fairly or unfairly define the campaign as someone who won't deal with the public all that much. Why do you assume it would have been a bad night for Katie House? Like she has tons of material to work with for offense. Like you don't have to be a genius to be like, you won't say you're going to certify an election like.

Like you have been lying to the voters. You would not engage in good governance. Like, I don't know. It just doesn't seem that hard. I understand Carrie Lake is beautiful and charismatic and blah, blah, blah. Like make her look like the nut that she is. Glad you brought that up. I'm not saying it would have been a bad night, but let's assume worst case scenario. It's a bad night. Yeah. Right. You move on and find ways to deal with it. And from my reporting, I,

And the email exchanges I've seen between the Pops campaign and the debate organizer, it was clear she never was going to debate. They talked about trying to reach an agreement and she wanted forums, a one-on-one forum. There is a way to debate a person like Carrie Lake. Mark Kelly debated Blake Masters, who's a pretty aggressive debater and candidate himself. And it was a very structured debate, right? 60 seconds for Kelly.

Blake Masters, 45 to rebut. Kelly, 45 to respond to Masters. What do people remember from that? Not much. And that's a debate Katie Hobbs could have had. Kirsten Sinema was kind of a model for this in 2018. She didn't even acknowledge her opponent. You just look straight at the camera and you say what you want to say.

You don't engage. There is a way to do it. But again, Katie Hobbs never wanted to do it. You know, we know this. Katie Hobbs has been in politics here for about 10 years or so. She is not a great retail politician. One on one, you know, she's easy to talk to. But in terms of, you know, explaining positions, she's not somebody who's talented at that. Yeah.

The other thing, there's like a dust up in the state right now. They're trying to make Katie Hobbs because she is the current secretary of state. They want her to what? Not not oversee the election, which is interesting because that's the whole thing that happened with Kemp and Stacey Abrams the first time is he was secretary of state and she accused him of taking people off voter rolls and whatnot. What do you think about this deal? Look, Katie Hobbs or whoever is in that position swore an oath to do the job.

I would assume that Katie Hobbs will uphold that oath. This is her job. We had a similar situation, I believe, back in 2014 when the then Secretary of State ran in the Republican primary for governor. I don't remember anybody asking him to excuse himself or accuse himself. Could be wrong. I don't remember that. Carrie Lake has brought this up from time to time. It's the position Katie Hobbs is in. I think the irony is, is that if Carrie Lake were in the same position,

having to certify an election that she lost, what do you think she would do? And what do you think Katie Hobbs would do having to certify an election that she lost? It's a great point because I mean, I can answer those questions. Carrie Lake would not certify it and Katie Hobbs will. And like, you just know that. So moving to the Senate race,

You're right. I watched that debate between Kelly and Masters, and I thought Masters was like weirdly robotic. He was like a debate bot. But he was, you know, crisp and clear and whatnot. And Mark Kelly is fine. But I've been a little surprised. You know, Mark Kelly has led in every poll basically ever. It's one of those races that...

Republicans pulled out of at one point because they didn't see it as winnable. But he looks like he's closing strong in the way that all the Republicans seem to be closing strong. Do you feel like that's what's happening there? Or do you think, Kelly, that there's still a lot of people that are there to support him?

I do not make any predictions. Just like vibes. Vibes. Yeah, the vibe. I don't think we will ever know what quite is going on here. What I see is, A, I see typical voter behavior. They start to make decisions and make choices. And maybe they had a feeling about somebody, a vibe about a candidate. But now as it gets closer to decision time, they're making decisions. And I need to remind you,

Early ballots have been in voters' hands here for three weeks. So they are literally making decisions. I think a million ballots have been filed so far out of a projected three million or so. One thing I'd like to point out for folks who aren't that familiar with the environment here is in this midterm election, people know, I think, that Republicans have a registration advantage over Democrats here. But in a midterm election, you might see Republicans having an eight-point turnout advantage, right?

against Democrats. That's just the way midterms are. This one might be different. It looks like we're going to have record turnout. It's a possibility. But in general, they have a turnout advantage. And so, you know, if you're a Democrat and if you can win a race by two points, like Kyrsten Sinema did in 2018 and Mark Kelly did in 2020, with the help of a lot of Republicans and

say, 10% of Republicans going your way, a differential of, say, 15 points on the independents, you have a chance of winning. But you're not going to win by five points or eight points if you're a Democrat. So this kind of close race is what you would expect. And you could argue that, look, given the headwinds the Democrats face here, Phoenix has a

the highest inflation rate in the country. Those are pretty stiff headwinds, and yet they're neck and neck. We have a conservative columnist here who I respect, Bob Robb, longtime columnist, who says, you know what? If this weren't a Trump ticket, Republicans might be up by five points across the board.

Oh, 100 percent. Just the fundamentals favor Republicans in such an unbelievable way. The reason that Democrats are competitive in so many of these places is because of the candidate quality. We've done a bunch of focus groups in Arizona with swing voters, and I would say there wasn't a lot of love for Masters generally. People thought he was weird and disliked him. But do you think people have been like warming up to him as he's been running a decent campaign? He's one of the guys who

like kind of scrubbed Trump from his website, like changed his position on abortion. Like he did try to pivot. Yeah. So do you think he's done that successfully? You know, he's been campaigning more with Carrie Lake, who was doing better than he was. Maybe there's a halo effect there. You've talked about negative partisanship, you know, lesser of two evils. You know, I think what you've seen on the Democratic side and Obama was here, you know, he just emphasized democracy. Is democracy an issue you can win with?

a colleague who's a pollster here and says, Democrats are just not presenting this issue in the right way. People get $5 a gallon gas by capital D Democracy.

tougher to get. If you talk about your right to vote, the next election, what could happen if, say, a Governor Kerry Lake and a Republican legislature and a Secretary of State, Mark Fincham, went to work over the next two years on our election laws? If you put it in those terms, it might be, might be more relatable.

to voters. There's still $5 a gallon gas and rent that's way beyond many people's means and grocery prices that are too high. That's a real fact they deal with every day. Maybe democracy would be more relatable if presented in that way, but it's not. And so it does fall back to those issues that everybody feels. Every voter feels it. And so that has to be a significant thing when it comes to making a decision.

It's true. Here's a question, though. I'm pretty interested in sort of like when we're going to get results from different places. But in Arizona, there's like a weird thing happening with hand counting. You can tell me if I've got this wrong, but right. There's like a couple of counties or towns that are saying they want to be able to hand count and that is going to make things take forever. Everything's going to take forever.

everything seeps in when it takes longer. You know, that's when the conspiracy theories start to breed. What's your, what's happening? Yeah. So let's break this down. So the hand count is,

It's set to be done in Cochise County. It's a southern Arizona county. There are about 60,000 votes there in an election. So, you know, pretty sparsely populated county. Trump won it by, I believe, 20 points, 60-40 over Biden. It is a three-person county board, one Democrat, two Republicans who are hardcore election deniers, and they want a hand count.

And it's all about keeping alive the idea that you can't trust the election. They don't seem to know what they're doing. They don't seem to understand how long this will take, but I'm not sure they care. As for who's behind it,

We know the local Republican Party chair was one of the 11 fake electors. He's involved, as is one member of the county board who was at the January 6th insurrection. Another member who's also a pretty far right Republican. Right now, it's isolated to one county, small county. Could be kind of a demonstration event.

they're thinking of, but it does appear aimed at just in some way undermining faith in the election. They say it's about restoring faith. You know, I guess we'll see when you look at the characters involved, you do have to wonder about the motives. Now, your question about results, very good question. Our elections changed dramatically in 2020, not for the reasons people might think, because Republican behavior changed dramatically.

because of at the urging of Donald Trump not to trust early ballots, they showed up at vote centers on election day with early ballots. If you show up on election day, those ballots don't get counted immediately. They'll be counted the next day or the day after because there's a process that early ballots go through. The majority of early ballots will be counted by the Sunday night here in Maricopa County, but there's still going to be a few hundred thousand that aren't.

And right now, I can tell you, our elections officials are concerned. If you look at the turnout, there's somebody here who tracks turnout daily. Turnout, Republican turnout, is behind Democratic turnout as we head into the weekend. There is a concern that once again, you're going to see a large number of Republicans showing up on Election Day Tuesday to either hand in their early ballots or fill in a ballot on the spot.

They're concerned about scenes of lines outside polling places that will be, again, misinterpreted as problems when they're not problems. It's a different kind of voter behavior, Republican behavior, that's affecting the ballot count. So there will be ballots uncounted at midnight on Tuesday. There may be some races that aren't decided yet. It's quite likely there'll be some races that aren't decided yet.

And that could go on for a couple of days. But they are counting the ballots the way they always count the ballots, following the rules and the procedures laid out in all that. But people might be left with the impression that, oh, it's not working. There are problems. But I would urge people who might be seeing these videos, if it happens, I want to add that. I'm not saying it will, but it looks like we're setting up for that. You now, you know the story. I'll add one more thing.

And this was a new law that came about after Donald Trump's narrow defeat here in Arizona. The threshold for recounts, automatic recounts, has been lowered to 15,000 votes. That's actually, given how close our elections can be in 2020, five of the elections, if this law had been in place, there would have been an automatic recount in five of the elections. One of those elections was the presidential election. Hmm.

And so it is possible we will see recounts in races, which will delay the final results, possibly into mid-December or maybe even Christmas. Oh, my God. What a nightmare.

All right. So last question. Secretary of State race. Mark Fincham, one of the scariest people running for secretary of state. And there's a lot of scary people running for secretary of state. But one thing that's cheered me up is that I have seen him pulling behind his challenger, Adrian Fontes, and also behind Carrie Lake. Like he doesn't seem to be doing as well. And people are actually spending money in that race to define him. What do you think? What's going on there?

There's going to be some fascinating tickets splitting on Tuesday, isn't there? Yeah, you think? You might vote for Carrie Lake for governor, but vote for Adrian Fontes for secretary of state. I mean, wow. You could see a Kelly Lake Fontes vote. You know, just bizarre.

And do you think that's because there's been a concerted effort to define Fincham? He is. Yes, he has faced an onslaught of advertising and he has been pretty well defined. And frankly, if you see him online or in videos, he's defining himself. He is probably the most hardcore election denier in the bunch. He actually he worked on it.

November 30th, 2020, he convened this event at the Downtown Hotel with Rudy Giuliani and some of the best known election deniers to just push this forward, to keep the doubt alive. And he is still that way.

Bram, my man, thank you so much for being with us today, for breaking down Arizona. It is the state I am most deeply concerned about, and we may have to talk about it again after the election. So thanks for being here. Sure thing. Stay in touch. Thanks to Bram Resnick for stopping by. Now, along with some last minute predictions, I wanted to explore the potential fallout from these midterms in 2023 and 2024. And for that, I wanted to bring in

The guy who's an even bigger optimist than I am, Mr. Bill Kristol, my good friend. Hey, Bill. I'm not usually introduced that way, and I'm not usually that optimistic, but I'm happy to play that role here. And I am actually slightly more optimistic than the conventional wisdom about Tuesday. So good to be with you anyway. I mean, you and I talk like every day. And I would say through this...

Yeah, I've been trying to tell everybody, like, mixed bag. There's some bright spots. I feel like you have even been more bullish in this tough environment than anybody. Maybe that's a misread, but where are you? So this will play on Saturday. So we're just, like, three days out. Where are we? So actually, one reason...

I was bullish, or at least not so super bearish, very early on in 2022. And everyone else, people forget this now, was red wave, red tsunami, oh my God, 2010 or 1994 all over again. And I said, I just didn't see it in the data. And there were other reasons to think that might not happen. And you and I, I think, agreed that one reason was the extremism of some of the Republican nominees as they emerged in 2022.

And then, of course, the polls changed after Dobbs. I also meant to mention that Roe could be overturned. And the polls changed in the summer. And I thought it was a rare phenomenon for me. I was sort of right about this and right a little bit ahead of other people that it wasn't going to be a red wave. Then the polls reversed some in September, October. And I sort of maybe stubbornly sticking to the non-red wave.

thesis a little more than I should. Though, I don't know. The polls now are very mixed. And my take on where we are is very close races and very hard to predict. And we don't know what turnout model is right. Is there a hidden Trump turnout as there was in 2020, a hidden Republican turnout? Is there a somewhat hidden Democratic turnout? The polls have been off at every election. They've been off half the time in undercounting Republicans and half the time Democrats. Everyone's so freaked out by 2016 and 2020 that we're more cognizant of the undercounting of Republicans.

I would still bet on the Senate staying Democratic. I just think Democrats are going to be okay in Arizona and probably Georgia and win Pennsylvania, which means they could lose Nevada. And I think Ohio is very much in play. And then these other states aren't totally out of play for a Democrat pickup, actually a couple or two of them. So I tend to think a Democratic Senate, I do think Republicans almost certainly now win the house. And I think what's happening, this is sort of a political science point, but I think an interesting one for 20 seconds is

the Trumpy parts of blue states are becoming more Trumpy. So parts of New York, parts of California, parts of Washington and Oregon that have demographics resembling, let's say, central Pennsylvania, the places that you know well. They were sort of held back from going the way Pennsylvania and Ohio went because they're in such blue states if you're in New York. But at the end of the day, if you just do the kind of very 30,000 foot look at some of these districts, they look a little bit like

districts that have gone Republican and Trumpy in the Midwest and elsewhere. And so there are house seat pickups possible for Republicans. In the Senate races, on the other hand, you know, there are a heck of a lot of young and diverse voters in Atlanta and

suburban female voters in the suburbs of Philadelphia as well as Pittsburgh. And there, the dynamic, I think, is somewhat different. The Trump vote's already manifested itself, you might say, in states like that in 2016 and 2020. And I feel like the upside's a little more on the Democratic side if they can get a decent young voter turnout.

on election day. I think we could have slightly divergent results in the Senate and the House, slightly divergent results in different parts of the country. We've gotten so used to saying correctly that it's a nationalized election these days and polarization and the old days when one state would go 15 points

Democratic in the neighboring state, 15 points Republican. That doesn't happen that much anymore. But it could happen a little more than people expect. So I think we could have cross-cutting currents to some degree. And finally, on the governors and secretaries of state, which you've been following so closely, I'll just ask you this. Those, I think, are very hard to read, but a little better for Democrats than one might have thought a few months ago, no?

Yeah, I mean, I think to the extent that when people talk about waves, the point about waves is that it sweeps all the things in its path. Right. And that's why I've been like the waves, not quite the right thing here, because I think, you know, it's not going to sweep up a guy like Doug Mastriano, not just because he's a particularly bad Republican, but because the Democrat, Josh Shapiro, is a particularly good Democrat.

The things that really stuck out in the focus groups were a lot of times, you know, people are like lesser of two evils and I just just voting against the worst person. People had a really positive opinion of Josh Shapiro in the swing voting groups, knew specific things that he'd done, like knew who he was and just felt favorably about him. And I think we should look back.

look at him as a potential emerging sort of Democrat star, especially if Oz either wins or comes very close, but like he beats Mastriano by 10 points or seven points or something. Gretchen Whitmer, I know people are starting to get nervous about Michigan and I understand why they've had upsets there before, but I think Whitmer has...

She sort of battled back from a place where people were kind of down on her. And I think things are looking good for her. You know, Evers and Katie Hobbs, those people are kind of in like Sisolak in Nevada. Those things are much more on the knife's edge. But I do think that there's just going to be some of the Democrat governors that do just fine. Yeah.

Look, if you if you're looking through the lens like I am, which is sort of a democracy lens as opposed to like a partisan Democrat lens, the secretaries and state and governors races matter a great deal. And so I think they're just going to be more of a mixed bag. Obviously, the thing I'm scared about the most is Kerry Lake. Yeah. And the effect of that after the election, if some percentage of the candidates who are only running because Trump recruited them, supported them, helped them win the primary election.

And then if they win the general election, which I would say, Kerry Lake's basically in that category, Oz is in that category, Herschel Walker's in that category, the gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin, Michaels. They all had Trump's support. Trump pulled them across the finish line in primaries against, in many cases, better established Republicans in their own states who were supported by the Republican establishment. So Trump

truthfully could take credit for getting the nomination. And then everyone said, oh, well, you got the nomination, but I mean, they can't win the general election. What a suicide mission. And of course, our democratic friends idiotically put money in to help some of those people, right, in the primaries. And if they win the general, the degree to which Trump gets to say,

These people wouldn't be here without me. It would be not a false statement, right? And they won with me strongly supporting them and doing rallies for them. I think Trump's strength in the Republican Party becomes greater than it is if he's there with Carrie Lake and Oz and Walker as winners two days after Election Day. It's a continuation of the world we've been living in, but maybe even an accentuation, don't you think, on the Republican side? I do.

I do think it intensifies something. So, you know, like there's been lots of times where people really accentuate the divisions between the McConnell wing and Trump. And, you know, everyone's always looking for that establishment MAGA fight. That stuff's over. Like Trump will have won definitively if he pulls all these guys over the finish line and he will bounce into a 2024 election.

nomination as a kingmaker. And the way that the world is the most different is just how many people owe their careers to him as he's running for office. Like they will all rush to endorse him. There will be no room for DeSantis or anybody else, right? Because Kerry Lake will be the newly minted governor of Arizona. Trump will announce, as we're taping this on Friday, but everyone's got these scoops that Trump's looking like he's going to announce on November 14th.

And so what? All those people, they all rushed to endorse Trump and it's basically over. Right. Like who challenges him at that point? I'll slightly be less, you know, fatalistic. It's not quite over, but it strengthens them hugely. And people who are kidding themselves about how, you know, we're having a meeting with Glenn Youngkin in two weeks and he thinks that's a blame for him. I tend to agree very much that unless people fight back very hard, very fast, this will be an interesting test. All these donors who are telling DeSantis privately, we like you better than Trump. You're more respectable. Yeah.

You could win. Trump could lose. Well, they say two days after Election Day, I'm putting up millions of dollars for DeSantis. Or will they kind of slink away and, you know, Ron, good luck. Yeah, let's be in touch in a few months. But I see how it plays out a little bit, right? I feel like you're totally right about Trump's strength. The other thing that's going to start happening is if you're an ambitious young politician or someone thinking of going into politics, Kerry Lake wins, Michaels wins. What lesson do you learn? You learn that you should be like them. You learn that the most important thing you can do in a Republican primary election

almost anywhere in the country, honestly, at this point, is have Trump's support. The second most important thing you can do is sound like a Trumpy election-denying, conspiracy-fostering, bigoted nativist type, because that's the path to success.

And so the degree to which this is a dynamic process, this is something you and I have always been struck by. I would say, honestly, other people tend to take a sort of snapshot view of this. They don't see that it's a movie, not a photograph. The degree of the increasing radicalization of the party, it's not just that Portman and Sass and

Until we leave the Senate and they're replaced by, if they win, the J.D. Vances and Dr. Oz's of the world who owe their careers to Trump. It's also that the people who run for the House next time and for the Senate next time and for state office next time are mini Carrie Lakes and mini Trump.

Michaels is in Wisconsin and so forth. So I think the dynamic is in a very bad direction if they win. If some of those people lose, if the Marist polls are right, if some of these Trump candidates lose and more of them lose than the non-Trump candidates, if there are non-Trump candidates much anymore, then that stems that

But all he needs probably just from a media point of view, I mean, you're the expert on this, don't you think, is, I mean, Lake is probably the biggest, right? I mean, if Lake wins, you know, Oz will lose, whatever, and people will say, well, Fetterman was the lieutenant governor and stuff. But if Carrie Lake beats the sitting secretary of state in Arizona after the whole world had decided she was so far beyond the pale that she couldn't win, that's awfully big for Trump, I think. It is. And, you know, it's something I'm watching all the anti-antis already kind of line up and they're doing this thing where they say,

I mean, yeah, of course she's a crackpot, but man, is she talented. Boy, is she formidable. Listen to how she answered that question. Like they're already setting themselves up just to fall all over themselves about her political acumen. Carrie Lake is a real game changer, not the least of which is she becomes kind of the Trump surrogate. Obviously, she becomes a vice presidential pick, but there's a lot of people auditioning for that job. A lot of women, Tulsi Gabbard, Nikki Haley, although that ship's probably sailed. I don't think DeSantis would do it, but I don't know. I don't know.

But the extent to which it just becomes a parlor game about Trump again and everybody's talking about Trump and Trump is on the top of everyone's mind. Like, I don't know. I just was on a secret pod with JBL talking about this. But what do you do? Like, what are the chances that the Republican National Committee just decides who needs to have a race? Why have a divisive primary? Yeah.

Right, or Pence and Christie and, you know, Asa Hutchinson run, but actually DeSantis and Young and Doet and Pompeo doesn't and Cotton doesn't. And suddenly it's a pretty one-sided race, I should think. I mean, on the Democratic side, since you mentioned, I think, a point that's really been neglected, which is there are pretty good Democratic candidates who are running and winning in some places. I mean, Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Tim Ryan, even if he loses by a point or two, and we don't know what will happen there.

you know, pretty impressive race. Well, do the Democrats have the wit to get these people together and say, okay, you guys have actually outperformed in very tough states. You guys know something about how to win in this universe we're living in, in America in 2022, 2023, 2024. Tell us what we need to be doing or the Democrats just going to be sort of oblivious and I don't know, do whatever they do.

I mean, I think one of the main downsides to sort of rerunning Trump is that people think it is just that, a rerun. I think that Democrats should treat this as the existential threat that it is. This guy tried to stage a coup to stay in power last time. He will now have a ton of secretaries of state, governors, senators, people in his corner that he didn't have last time, and not to mention all the state legislatures. You know, all the people who held the line, with the exception of Brad Raffensperger,

Everybody who held the line is gone. Like all these like Kemp and Kemp and Georgia. I'm thinking like in the state legislature. Yeah, totally. Those people are gone. And so and Doug Ducey in Arizona, who was quite important. That's right. Let's not forget. And so to your point about how everybody's getting worse and like, you know, Trump spawns a mini generation of mini Trumps and then they themselves spawn a new generation of mini Carrie Lakes and mini Marjorie Taylor Greene's.

We're in a very precarious situation. And so if the Democrats at that point don't take the lesson very hard and very seriously, and if Tim Ryan does come within one point or he's the one place where I'm willing to be very bullish, Tim Ryan could potentially pull through and do an upset. But if he comes close, he should become the national face of the Democratic Party or a guy like Josh Shapiro is very impressive. So they've got to start thinking about that. I think they're insane to run Biden again, but there's lots of people who disagree with me on that.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. But even if they don't run, well, I'm struck by when I talk to Democrats, there's not much of a sense that they could learn something from these candidates who will have radically outperformed in a tough environment with 8.5% inflation and, you know, an unpopular president. I mean, if Tim Ryan gets within just, I think he could win, but let's say gets with a point or two in Ohio where Biden's at 37% approval or something. And, you know, the state's been very Trumpy the last two cycles.

and the National Party hasn't spent much money on him, which is kind of unbelievable in my opinion. I mean, there's a lot to be learned from Tim Ryan. I just don't get the feeling that they don't think of it quite that way though, you know, for some reason. Maybe they will. Maybe we can get them. We can get them to think that way maybe. Well, I was going to say, you know, you say politics is contingent and I think that that is the case, that if Democrats...

get defeated in major ways, they lose these Senate seats. There's got to be some reevaluation going into 2024, knowing they're facing Trump again. When you just said about something we can do, I could get dour about what the possibility of people learning the lessons that need to be learned. But the fact is, a whole bunch of people are going to have to stand up

and just say, it can't go on like this. Like, you have to become more politically popular. You have to change this conversation. Can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. Right. Anybody who's happy about the idea of rerunning against Trump because they think he's beatable, I think is playing a dangerous game. Yeah, totally. Bill, any last words here? Because I don't want to keep you too long.

The main lesson to be taken from 2022 is Trump's not going away. Trumpism isn't going away. It dominates the Republican Party, and the Republican Party is going to get 50%, maybe 49%, maybe 51% of the vote around the country. Basically, it's very, very even. And so confidence that, oh, man, they're really discrediting themselves. Can you believe these cookies theories they're spouting? Confidence that

that they're going to pay a price for that without making them pay a price, without having a democratic strategy and messaging operation and candidates who are capable of making them pay a price. That is the biggest mistake to make, whichever way these races that are on a knife edge go. Bill Kristol, thanks for coming by the Focus Group pod, sharing your wisdom with us. We will see how things go. May the optimists always win. I'm with you in that hope. See ya. See ya.

All right. Always fun to have a visit from my pal, Bill Crystal. But now I'm going to do a little like point of personal privilege. There is a guy in my office. Sometimes I've mentioned him on the other podcasts. His name is Gunnar Raymer, and he started as an intern with me like 18 months ago. He is deeply impressive, and he's one of these guys. He's like a young Steve Kornacki.

We have whiteboards in our office, but he's the guy who sits with his head in all the polling. He has strong feelings about television advertising versus digital advertising. And he basically helps us set the strategy for a lot of the work we do in the actual races that we're playing in. And so I talk to him every day, but I wanted you to hear from him because he is somebody who is deep in the weeds on this stuff. And I thought it would be fun to talk to him. Gunnar, thanks for being here, man. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited.

Okay, so because we had Ralston and Resnick on, we've been focusing on the western states like Nevada and Arizona, but we haven't talked as much about Pennsylvania and Georgia. Why don't you give us an update on where both of those stand? Yeah, so we can start with Pennsylvania. Listen, a Fox News poll had Josh Shapiro up WSB.

double digits over Doug Mastriano. And we've seen it tighten a little bit. Republicans are coming home as they start to pay attention to the races. And Doug Mastriano has been able to do some small TV buys. But Josh Shapiro is in a very good position right now. And I'm not concerned on a democracy scale about the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race. However,

if I was working for John Fetterman's campaign, I would be concerned. I think pointing to our last PA focus group with these Oz leaners who saw the debate performance, I think that Republicans in a very real way are coming home to Dr. Oz. And it's not like you need 50% plus one, like in Georgia in the Pennsylvania Senate race, you just need a majority of votes. And I think that Oz has positioned himself as he's attempted to pivot and be more palatable to these swing voters. I think that it's worked because again, these Republicans,

And it's ruthless attacks. It's very clear and obvious to voters when they hear the message from Senate Leadership Fund and other Republican outside groups hitting Fetterman on crime and inflation. And I think that we're seeing voters react to that negatively and coming home to Oz. How come you think that did experiments on dogs stuff didn't do more damage?

Because it's confusing, right? It's easy when you can just say, John Fetterman said this about cash bail or whatnot, and then it sticks. It's a very clear message. These people are being pummeled with ad over ad right now. And when you have a clear, consistent message coming from both Oz himself and outside groups, I think it makes it

easier for voters to understand. And I think these wacky Oz hits that Democrats have on him isn't working outside of maybe the carpetbagger stuff. And to be clear, I think that there's a lot of people when they're taking a poll and say, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion about

Dr. Oz. I think they say unfavorable. A lot of them do. A majority of them do. But I think that some of these unfavorable Oz voters are still saying, yes, I'm voting for Oz over Fetterman for two reasons, because I don't trust Fetterman on issues related to crime and inflation. And Dr. Oz isn't some crazy person like Doug Mastriano. You know, these are traditional Republicans who like to check off a box and say, hey, I'm voting for one Republican. And it's definitely not Doug Mastriano for them.

All right. So, you know, I agree with you on this because, again, we are in brain sharing mode. But what I've always kind of thought, if Fetterman pulls this out, it's going to be because a bunch of Trump voters vote for him because they are like steel town folks in Pittsburgh. Like it's not the college educated suburban voters that we normally talk to, the flippers, people who went for Trump in 16, Biden in 20.

Those are college educated suburban Republicans. They are right leaning independents or moderate Republicans. And like they can get comfortable with Oz. Don't you think there's going to be some subset of Mastriano Fetterman voters? Or I guess I've always thought that that was going to be something that existed and that they could even potentially undercount those people because they do tend to chronically undercount these voters in the polls. So is that not a possibility?

I think that right after the primary, there was a lot of talk if this was possible. And I think that at that time it was possible, but I'm not sure John Fetterman ran the kind of campaign that he needs to. I understand that he naturally comes off as some sort of populist, but I look to Tim Ryan in Ohio and I think he's done a much better job talking to these

maybe traditional Democrats who went Obama, Obama, Trump, Trump. I think that someone like Tim Ryan has done a much better job of doing that than someone like John Fetterman. And

Tim Ryan hasn't been hit on crime and inflation the same way that someone like John Fetterman has just because of Fetterman's past comments. And I think before the primary two, we talked about why the Fetterman candidacy was something that could not work out for Democrats. And we knew these hits were coming. And over the summer, I think people got a little bit too excited. And those that could sort of see SLF hits on Fetterman are coming. They're coming after Labor Day and they're really going to work. And that's what we're seeing. And that

I think doesn't happen if Conor Lamb is the Democratic nominee. I think he's making the same exact pitch as Josh Shapiro is. And I think that the dynamics would be a lot different should he have been the Democratic nominee.

Yeah. Pour one out for Conor Lamb, man. All right. Let's talk about Georgia. Eric Erickson is really pushing the narrative like Hersh has got it locked up. Everyone came home. No one's mad about the just scandal after scandal, all the kids he didn't raise and the abortions he paid for, allegedly. And, you know, it's not even going to a runoff. Walker's got it in the bag. What do you think?

I still think it goes to a runoff. I think Brian Kemp wins handedly over Stacey Abrams. And I think that you're going to have enough support for the Libertarian candidate and you're going to have Walker sitting around 49. And I think Warnock a little bit under that. And that's going to be a runoff. But I guess, Sarah, my one question for you, and we've talked about this before, and it's who has the advantage if there is a runoff in the Senate race? How do you think about that?

Yeah, this one's fun to game out because. All right. So right now, Herschel Walker is no doubt going to get helped, just like Brad Raffensperger did in the primary by the long tail of Brian Kemp. And that goes away in a runoff. Kemp's not on the ballot. A lot of traditional Republicans aren't turning out or might not, you know.

That's a possibility. And that hurts Herschel Walker. I think it probably comes down to whether or not Republicans have already have 51 seats in the Senate, because if the Senate hangs in the balance like it did last time, I just think that the Republicans will spend more money than God to pick up that Senate seat. Like if that's the only one, they will do anything they can to push Herschel Walker over the edge of

So, I don't know. It's tough, though. Do you have a sense of this one?

Donald Trump gets very involved, I think, in this Senate runoff. And that wasn't the case in January of 2021. He was actively telling people that the election was rigged. And so long as Kemp avoids the runoff, and it's just about Hershel Walker versus Raphael Warnock, I think Trump comes in heavy there. And he really helps with the rural vote in Georgia that didn't come out in the same way back in the runoff in 2021. Yeah. It's hard to know, though. I mean, Georgia's been the one place that's kind of bucked Trump.

I think that Herschel benefits more from Kemp because Kemp gives him the normie validation. I think Trump, when he gets real involved, I actually wonder how much that helps him. At that point, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump will never have been on the same page so clearly as they would be fighting for Herschel Walker to get that Senate seat. That's right. Okay. Michigan governor's race.

I think Whitmer is going to be fine. There's been a little bit of panic, I think, with Michigan Democrats and seeing the Republicans come home. Yeah, there's been some outside spending. There's been debates between Whitmer and Dixon and Republicans are coming home. And I think Whitmer is still in a fine position. And I think the further down ballot you go with these wacky Republican candidates, the Democrats are going to be just fine. I mean, with Christina Caramo, Michigan secretary of state candidate.

She has spent almost no money on television. Same with Matt DiPerno. He spent some money. He's the attorney general candidate in Michigan. But I do want to talk about

What happened in Michigan that's a little bit different because everybody likes to pick on Republican primary voters and they've made a lot of poor decisions this primary cycle. But Caramo and DiPerno both got the GOP nomination at the convention. Right. So delegates voted for them and they beat the establishment picks. They beat elected officials, handled the case.

Christina Carmo, QAnon says that abortions are satanic murder, all these crazy fringe podcast appearances. And she got two thirds of the vote at the convention just because she was handpicked by Donald Trump. Same with DiPerno. He beats a former House speaker, Tom Leonard, easily in the convention. Just goes to speak that, you know, there's a problem with Republican primary voters voting.

But there's also a problem with these conservative activists, too, who are shoveled through these crazy candidates. Matt DiPerno is under investigation for tampering with election machines. Right. And he easily won. And there's this recent study. I think about it all the time.

And what it took a look at is conservative activists and how they perceive elected officials and how conservative they think they are. And what the study found is that no matter how conservative someone's voting record was, they were perceived as less conservative voters.

if they did not support Trump. Now, we know this with Republican primary voters. Liz Cheney, doesn't matter how much you talk about how much of the time she voted with Donald Trump or Tom Rice in South Carolina, a very conservative member of Congress. If you don't support Trump, you're out with Republican primary voters. I think this Michigan example is that not only at the Republican primary voter level are you out if you don't support Trump, but same with GOP activists. And we saw that in Michigan. I think it's a great example of that.

You haven't sort of burst on the scene of political punditry yet, but you will. But you're looking deep at all these numbers because you're the one who helps us think about where and how we're going to spend our money. And so because you don't have the scourge of conventional wisdom constantly being thrust upon you, do you have any things that you think all the big shots are missing that like all the things they talk about on the cable networks are just –

silly narratives or bad narratives or they're missing the point or there's something you've seen that people aren't talking about enough that's contributing to this political dynamic? That's a great question. I don't know. I have one critique that I've seen a little bit, but it's a critique that others are making too. And it's the looking at the early vote as a guide to how the midterms are going to look, I think just doesn't make sense because as we see

realignment take place. We can see who voted so far in the midterms, but we don't know how they voted, right? It's hard to predict what the crossover support is. So I just, the idea of looking at early vote and all of that as some sort of predictor, I think is missed by some political pundits.

Yeah. These last few days right before the election are an actual nightmare because you desperately want answers. And so you're looking for all the, anything you can find to give you some, some sense. But at the end of the day, nobody knows anything. Political punditry is a scam. Nobody should participate. All right. Last question, Gunnar. Are there any like upsets you think could happen? Like what are your, what are your outlier races where you think people would be like, Oh my God, that's amazing. Uh,

Okay, I have a fun one for you. And I want to preface this with saying I do not think it's going to happen. But I would love if it happened. And that is this Oklahoma gubernatorial race, right? It's Joy Hoffmeister, who is an elected official statewide in Oklahoma, and she is mounting a very decent challenge.

against a really bad Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, who is pissed off the tribes in the state. Parents are mad that previously had to go to four day school days. And it would be absolutely great to have one of these former Republicans turn Democrat, beat a really bad Republican. And I'd love that. But I want to ask you, Sarah, do you have any fun upsets that you're looking forward to?

I mean, you know, I bet the farm on Tim Ryan here. You know, like there's two outlier races, right? One is New Hampshire with Don Baldock, who is a total insane person, election denying lunatic. And then there's O'Day in Colorado, who's like a normie Republican from the old days and who has said that the election was free and fair, who doesn't want Donald Trump's endorsement. And...

I don't know. There's like a part of me that would like to see someone like him do well while all the others fail. Like I want to see Walker go down, uh, masters go down, fans go down. And like, if those guys went down, but like suddenly there was an upset in Colorado, I would find that to be a good outcome. Cause it would help with the narrative, even though we're still pushing a boulder uphill that the insane people lose. And if you could nominate some decent people, they might win. No,

No, this is totally right. And what we should really hope for is Joe O'Day does very well. And Heidi Ganahl, who's the gubernatorial candidate going against Jared Polis, does poorly because the day after she won the Colorado primary, she's going on Steve Bannon's show. You know, she doesn't call January 6th an insurrection. And it would send a signal that if you nominate a moderate Republican who's out on Trump, this is how you can perform. You can outperform the MAGA, terrible Republican candidates. And also Colorado has a Republican candidate who beat an absolute

lunatic former county clerk named Tina Peters, and she won the Republican primary there in Colorado. So that is, it's a very interesting state. Yeah, they got a good Republican secretary of state candidate in Colorado too. Like they've got a couple of good Republicans that it would be nice to see some of them do well in as long as all the other ones lose, as long as the bad guys lose. That's right. Gunnar Rehmer, thank you for coming and nerding out with me on the Focus Group podcast. And

Thanks to all of you. This is our last focus group podcast before election day. We will be back a few more times before the end of the year to sort of do cleanup from these races, analysis, find out who our swing voters ultimately voted for. So there's going to be more focus groups in your future. I've gotten so much out of these focus groups the last few years, and I hope you have too. Remember to vote if you haven't already. Keep the faith. Thanks for listening.