Appraising Arizona
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Welcome back to Beyond the Polls. Biden's historic decision to drop his re-election bid puts the presidential race into uncharted waters. Or does it? That's what I'll rant about this week. Plus, I'm joined by Arizona political expert Dan Scarpinato to talk about next week's Arizona primaries and the lay of the land in America's most interesting state. Let's dive in.

Well, it seems that everything that could happen is happening in America. We have an unprecedented decision for a candidate who was a lock for a party nomination. The sitting president of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., decides to end his campaign and endorse his sitting vice president, Kamala Harris.

I say that's never happened before. We've seen candidates decide to drop out. We've seen candidates challenged. But it was about a month before the Democratic convention started. He had not had a serious challenge. Gene Phillips, sorry, you didn't do that well. He was going to be nominated by acclamation.

except for that terrible debate, put pressure on him to drop out as Democrats across ideological spectrum decided and feared that he was a loser and that if he was a loser, they might be too. Well, he decided discretion was the better part of valor. And then we have Kamala Harris. Well, what are the pluses of Kamala Harris?

Well, she's not 81 years old to begin with. She's 59. She's somebody who is not suffering from some sort of neurological disorder or other health problem. It's quite clear that something is problematic with the president, although no one quite knows what that might be.

He hasn't been terribly forthcoming and neither have his doctors. It's evident, though, that this is a man who, for various physical reasons, has dramatically slowed down from four years ago when he had already slowed down from when he was in his peak decades earlier. Many Democrats think, well, that's all you need. You know, people say they don't want Biden to run again. They don't like Trump. Put in somebody who's young.

as for political terms, fresh-faced, somebody who can maybe appeal to the black and Latino communities that have been peeling away from the Democrats, and boom, recovery, renaissance.

The evidence so far is that she's excited, the Democrats. She's raised over $100 million since she announced her candidacy. They say 62% of that is from new donors this cycle. There's a unanimous so far endorsement of her. One might have thought there would be at least some challenge, but it looks like there's not going to be a challenge to her. And that looks to be everything Democrats want.

Well, as a noted radio commentator used to say in the 70s and 80s, now let's look at the rest of the story. The fact is Kamala Harris is a known commodity and she is an unpopular one. Her

favorability or her job approval ratings, no matter what you look at, are roughly identical to Biden. She has a little bit more in the don't know or won't say or aren't sure category, but she's sitting there at 37, 38 percent, 39 percent favorability or job approval just around where Biden is a little lower disapproval. But she's way underwater.

This is a person who needs to reintroduce herself to the electorate because the Kamala Harris people think they know is a person they don't want.

That's what's being evidenced so far in most of the polling. And again, because she wasn't a candidate until recently, you have a few pre-dropout hypothetical polls, a couple post-dropout quickie polls, but they all pretty much show the same features. She may run a point ahead or a point behind Biden, but she's still tailing Trump in national polls.

You take a look at the five-way race where you add the third-party candidates, and she's trailing by even more. She's trailing in the RealClearPolitics average of five-way polls by 4.7 points.

Now, there's a likelihood that the closer we get to election, that some of these people who say they're going to vote for the Green Party candidate will come home to the Democratic Party. That's typically what happens with third party candidates. But that's why the fact that she trails in the national two candidate polls by about two points is particularly troubling.

Democrats have to win the national popular vote by somewhere between two and three points to have a good shot at winning the electoral college. If you're behind in the popular vote, you are guaranteed to lose. So then the question is, what can she do?

She's well known, she's tied to an unpopular administration, she's tied to a very unpopular president, and she's running behind. Doesn't this mean that Trump has won? Well, no, but it does mean that Harris has to do some things and do them relatively quickly. First, what she needs to do is try her best to eliminate the increasingly common sense that this is a person who is, let's just say, in over her head.

that she has lots of memes on the internet, not just memes, videos of her engaging in what can only be charitably called word salads. She has an unfortunate tendency to giggle when she's nervous, and doing that in informal settings is fine. I laugh and giggle and stuff. Doing it on camera when you're talking about the important issues of the day is entirely something different.

She also has the unfortunate history of being appointed to help deal with the immigration crisis back in 2021. Now, you can overstate what her remit was. Republicans call her the borders are that Democrats say she never had that title or she never had that responsibility overall. But the fact is she came out with fanfare as the person who was going to try and reduce migration on the southern border. Oops.

So that means that she's particularly vulnerable on that issue. And then you have the emerging issue that Republicans are beginning to talk about, which is a flip side of the Watergate. Back in the Watergate crisis, the question Republican Senator Howard Baker always asked was, what did the president know and when did he know it? The question was, to what extent was Nixon involved in the cover up?

of the break-in of the Democratic National Committee as opposed to his underlings. It was meant to be an exculpatory series of questions because if you couldn't tie the president to it, then the president couldn't be culpable or impeached. But, of course, it often had the opposite effect.

Because it turned out the president knew and was involved in a lot more than the president was telling his aides. What did Kamala know about President Biden's decline? When did she know it? Expect Republicans to prosecute that line of attack over and over and over again. So what she needs to do is make herself clear.

Over she needs to be somebody who has a clear and decisive break on something with the Biden administration because otherwise she completely owns a set of policies that are unpopular with America's swing voters. She needs to be able to show that she not only is not

Biden in terms of his difficulty in forming words, but she's not the old Kamala Harris either She's not somebody who's going to talk in new agey word salad She's gonna be somebody who off-the-cuff can be decisive and leadership like and somebody who can restore Confidence in her ability to have the most important job in the free world she also needs to be somebody who maybe can get under Donald Trump's skin and

Trump has been much more restrained in this campaign than in other campaigns, but that's a relative term. Donald Trump remains an instinctive attack dog political actor. And if Harris can get under his skin, he can say things that might sound good to him or his base, but would get the sort of person he needs, the person who voted for Biden four years ago and doesn't particularly love Trump.

To say, well, maybe I need to rethink this. Harris needs to be skilled in doing that, not in a blunderbuss way, but in a very, if not subtle, limited way. But if she can do that, that can help.

change people's calculus of I don't like Harris, I don't like Trump, but maybe I'll prefer Trump. That group of people is still going to be large, given the fact that her negatives are almost as high as Biden. The legendary double hater category, people who dislike both candidates, is going to be among record high. It may not be a quarter of the electorate like it was with Biden and Harris, but it'll probably be at least the 18 percent that it was before.

with Trump versus Clinton. I said Biden versus Harris. I meant Biden versus Trump. These are things she can do, but the sooner she does them, the better. I think she's well on her way to being effectively, if not actually unopposed for the nomination, which allows the Democratic Party to use the four days of the convention to do what modern conventions do, which is basically act as an infomercial for the nominee.

It'll be very interesting to see what they choose to say. There's a temptation to say, "What we need to do is shore up our voters, shore up our base." That means abortion rights. That means climate change. That means Gaza. That means democracy. That means talking about issues of civil rights that traditionally have been of interest to the black community.

And that means not running away from an administration that she and others say is one of the most accomplished in history. If the thing isn't broke, don't fix it.

The alternative would be that she veers to the center, that she picks a openly more moderate Democrat, that she talks about things that she would do differently, that this just isn't the second term of the Biden-Harris administration with Harris and somebody else. You know, Harris moved to the first position, but rather that this is a different course.

That's what I think swing voters want. They may not want Trump, but they don't want an extension of Biden. And it's not just the person. It's the policies. We will see what she's able to do. She has been impressive in the last 72 hours in shoring up and acquiring Democratic elite support and energizing a hitherto demoralized Democratic base and donor class. But that doesn't win elections.

The Democratic Party can't simply mobilize its base. It needs to win independents and swing voters as well. I think she might be better than Biden at doing that.

But the jury's out, and she has about 30 to 45 days to prosecute her case, that former prosecutor, or else she's going to find that she has run out of time, and whether the trial's over or not, the jury will have already convicted her.

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Well, Arizona used to be known as a deep red state, home to conservative icon Barry Goldwater. But in recent years, it's become arguably the country's swingiest state and arguably its most politically interesting. It has primaries in a few days. And here to tell us everything about the Grand Canyon State, both primary and general election, is Daniel Scarpinato, a.k.a. Scarp, 420.

Former political reporter for Arizona newspapers, formerly worked with the National Republican Congressional Committee, was the chief of staff to Republican Governor Doug Ducey, and currently the president and founder of Winged Victory. Dan or Scarp, welcome to the poll. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be with you.

Well, we've got a trio of interesting primaries in both parties for contested House seats. The one that's probably attracts national attention the most because it's going to be a key target in the fall is the Scottsdale based Arizona one where multiple Democrats are trying to take on incumbent David Schweikart. How do you see that race and who are the main people to watch?

Well, um, the main people, so there's a crowded democratic primary. This, this race ended up in the last general election being closer than, than anyone expected. Um, and there wasn't really a lot of money that was spent here, um, by the Democrats. So they went into this cycle, really seeing this as a much bigger target than before. Um,

I say all that, but David Schweikert has been through a lot of races, and he is kind of the guy with nine lives, and he's been pretty durable. So he's had primaries, he's had generals, etc.

But he's he's withstood a lot. And in a prior cycle, in a slightly different district, Democrats came at him really hard and fell short. So I think ultimately this will be a barn burner in the fall. But if in fact, you know, and we'll see how what's happening nationally impacts some of the polls in Arizona, I

in the next couple of weeks here. But if, in fact, President Trump is up in Arizona anywhere between six to eight points, that means he'll win this district by a few points. And I think ultimately, if that's the case, Congressman Schweikert will be fine. But having said all that, there is a crowded Democratic primary here.

And I think the main players right now are Marlene Woods, who's the widow of Grant Woods, who was kind of an iconic Arizona figure who passed away a couple years ago. He had been FIFA staff to John McCain and then

Attorney General of Arizona in the 90s, but kind of veered towards the Democratic side of the aisle in his latter years. And so his widow, Marlene, who's a former...

Television personality, former anchor here in Phoenix. She is a key candidate in that race. Andre Cherny, who has run a lot of times and hasn't won anything over the years, but he's trying at it again.

And he is the hard worker. Actually, I live in this district and I see him out all the time in 115 degree weather knocking doors. And he's got a lot of signs up. So he actually lost a race, a congressional race, an open congressional race back in March.

2012 to Kirsten Sinema, which resulted in her moving up the ranks. But he's back again. And then there's a newbie, Connor O'Callaghan,

who, um, I think has, has, uh, has run a pretty good campaign and, um, and he's kind of new to the scene. And I would say he's kind of presenting himself, I think a little bit more moderate, uh, but has, has seemed to cut through. Um, and there's some other folks, but I think the race right now is really amongst those three. And, um,

and you know it's the phoenix media market it's one of the most expensive markets in the country

I think it's hard to cut through. You know, you got to buy a lot of waste. There's a lot of, you're basically buying almost the whole state to talk to voters in, you know, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, and some of Phoenix. So it's been an expensive race. And my sense is that it's kind of a jump ball right now.

And early voting, a lot of people, especially on the Democratic side, vote with early ballot. And that started a few weeks ago. So this race is probably kind of over at this point. Obviously, we won't know the results for until until the 30th.

or longer if it's close. But I suspect with the ballots that have come in, it's probably largely been decided and these folks are just sprinting towards the finish line.

Yeah, I mean, Arizona is one of those states that doesn't have a runoff. So, you know, somebody can theoretically win with like 21 percent of the vote in a seven or an eight way race. You know, you mentioned three. I know there's a few others who have enough money to, you know, be above the single, you know, the low single digits. Do any of those three profile as a stronger challenger or a weaker challenger to Schweikert or is it kind of all a jump ball on that score, too?

I think it's kind of a jump ball, but Andre probably has more of a record and an oppo book because he's been around for a while, taken a lot of positions. Now, I'll say, though, I mean, he ran actually his first race in Arizona. He was the Democratic nominee against Doug Ducey, who was running for state treasurer.

And that was a close race. And in that race, if I recall, Andre came out in support of Senate Bill 1070, which was, you know, in the minds of Democrats, a pretty controversial immigration law here in the state that made national news. So he's kind of been he's depending on the cycle and the race he's running in. He's been moderate. He's been conservative.

more left of center. Um, but I think he's got a lot out there probably for a, an opposition campaign to work with, you know, Marlene, it's the same thing. She's getting attacked a lot in this race for being a Republican in the past and all kinds of stuff she said and, and did and events she went to. Um, and so, you know, I think I'd probably say that, um,

that, you know, if I were, if I were the Democrats, it would seem like the Conroe Callahan would kind of be a blank slate. Um, um, but the reality is, um, I think whoever comes out of this, this is just one of those districts where, you know, it's going to start as probably like a 46, 46 race, um,

And, you know, you're you're you're going to be fighting for, you know, six to eight percent of the electorate. It's just that kind of district. Yeah, it was Biden plus one and a half in 2020. Katie Hobbs carried it. But I think Ms. Yee, your chief controller.

State treasurer. Yeah.

This is the seed in the Phoenix area that's going to exhibit that. Do you think the Democrats push on things like democracy and abortion rights might have a larger effect here than it might have statewide and in the other areas of the Valley of the Sun?

Yeah, no, you're right about that. It's very much, when you look at the composite of the electorate here, it's the most affluent in the state in terms of education level, the highest. So the voters are, I would say, somewhat, they're very engaged. They're very informed. Turnout is sky high. Treasurer Yee, you know, really,

racked up a huge number in a lot of these pockets in here. And when you look at the Delta, so she was the highest vote getter of any Republican and the lowest vote getter was a guy named Mark Fincham, who was the nominee for secretary of state. When you look at, if we went precinct by precinct through here, as I've done,

you would see anywhere from a 20 to 30 point Delta between her vote share and his. And so, um, that there's a huge swing universe here. And I do think, um, the issues you named are big ones, but so is immigration. And one thing you're seeing in a place like paradise Valley, beautiful community, um,

and people live on large lots on mountains or the side of mountains, is there having what are being called dinnertime burglaries where it's organized crime that is breaking into people's houses often in broad daylight. And so the immigration issue

has really catapulted up. And that's one where I think, you know, the Democrats are really going to be on defense on that. But there is this abortion measure on the ballot here. And that is what the Democrats are hoping is ultimately their salvation. But I really think that that the immigration issue is is is not going to go away between now and the election.

Well, let's shift gears a little bit. Ruben Gallego, ex-husband of Phoenix Mayor Gallego and congressman of a largely Latino central Phoenix district, is leaving for the Senate. And there's a contest on the Democratic primary essentially to become the next congressperson. Who are the players and who has the edge?

Well, in the race for his seat. Yes. In the race for his. Yeah. In the race for his seat. And this is you're right. I mean, this is an overwhelming Democratic district. Yeah.

And, you know, whoever comes out of this primary will be the member of Congress. And, you know, it's one where... One of the things that is interesting, actually, is when Rubin ran for this seat, when Ed Pastor, who was a longtime congressman, stepped down, you had...

and their brother running for this seat. And now actually, you know, it's interesting to me in a lot of these races where you actually just see less candidates getting in. And I don't know what that says about, uh, about how people view going to Congress, but, but it's, you know, you do see smaller fields in these races. And so, um, there it's, it's basically a collection of Democrats, um,

um, of former state legislator, city council person. Um, and they are fighting it out, you know, pretty aggressively. Um, and the Hispanic vote obviously here is, is key to, um, to this district and to, um, to whoever comes out of it. Um, and you know, it's been very much who can, who can fight the MAGA wing of the party, um,

um the the best and uh of the republican party um and i don't think there's really been um a ton of polling here because at least public polling because it's not going to be a competitive race in the general so i think it's kind of uh i don't think anyone has a really good read on where this is going to land

So then we get to the Battle of Titans or something sitting out there on the West Valley. The race to succeed Debbie Lesko featuring

a guy who's endorsed by Donald Trump, Abe Hamada, a guy who was endorsed by Donald Trump for the Senate last time, Blake Masters, the Speaker of the House, Ben Toma, and a disgraced former member of Congress, Trent Franks, who resigned because he tried to persuade, it came out that he tried to persuade one of his young female staffers to carry his baby. This has got to be one of the nastiest races in the country.

But we featured some of the negative ads in my out of the week segment here as we come down the stretch. And this is one where because MAGA Republicans do vote on Election Day, it may not be in the bag with the mail ballots. How do you forecast this race? Who do you think's got momentum and what do you think's going to happen over the next week?

Well, full disclosure, I'm friends with pretty much all of these candidates. But I will say that I think...

that largely the race at this point feels like it's between Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh as we head into this final lap here. And, you know, I mentioned the early ballots. I mean, in Maricopa County for Republicans, there's still a lot of ballots out there. So I don't think that this race is decided. And I think this final week really does matter. Um,

Um, I, I, it, it really did. There was a sense that, that, that masters had the momentum for a while and really had Abe on his heels. Um, there's been some polling showing, you know, as a one point race. Um, and, uh, if that's the case, I mean, you know, the, the Trump endorsement, um,

in a Republican primary in Arizona is a, is a powerful thing. And Abe certainly has that in his, um, in his arsenal at the same time, you know, Blake masters, uh, was the United States Senate candidate. Uh, Mark Kelly spent a hundred million dollars against him talking about how horrible he was on, uh,

reproductive rights and everything right down the line, well, that actually is pretty helpful in a Republican primary. So I think he started off with a huge name ID advantage and also a lot of association with Trump world. Trump supported him last time. So he's certainly not viewed as anti-Trump. And so...

And then, you know, Ben Toma, who's the Speaker of the House, it's just really hard when you've got two, because both Masters and Abe were statewide candidates. Abe barely lost the AG race, not as high profile as U.S. Senate, but, you know, they just started off as really known candidates.

quantities that a sitting state legislator, unless they have piles and piles of money to buy name ID, just can't compete with. So I believe it's going to be one of those two. I think anybody who says they know who it's going to be doesn't know. And then I think Frank's has probably...

probably siphoned some votes that would have gone to Toma. And, you know, crazier things have happened. You could see people saying, oh, my God, all this nastiness. This is a community. It's the West Valley of Phoenix, largely retired people.

uh communities think of the villages in florida you know that's what you've got out here and so i think the cities up there plus exactly yeah and so i think the word of mouth matters um i think that you know everyone i i've i've said from the beginning of this race i think the hard work will pay off

People are home during the day. I mean, I've been on campaigns where we've done a lot of work out here. People answer the door, they answer the phone, they talk to their neighbors, the yard signs matter. So, you know, there is a possibility people say, wow, all this nastiness and that Ben Toma could kind of sprint up the middle. But I would suspect we're going to see either Blake or Hamadeh come out on top here.

Well, you've got a couple other races. You've got the Yavapai County supervisor challenging firebrand Eli Crane, who's one of the people who ticked off former Speaker Kevin McCarthy by voting to unseat him. And you've got

Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb trying to take on Cary Lake. Have either of those challenges really materialized or is these kind of like we know what's going to happen, it's just playing out the string? What you just said, I mean the

I don't see any scenario where Carrie Lake is not the nominee for U.S. Senate. She's got a huge name ID. I mean, again, she was on local news in the Phoenix market for 30 years and then obviously a really high profile race for governor. She will be the U.S. Senate nominee and I think has a very good chance of winning that race in the general election.

Um, so getting the primary behind her, I think will be important. Uh, Mark Lamb, great, great man, great public servant. Um, I think this was not a winnable race, uh, from the moment he got in and, um, and, uh, but I think he'll have a bright future, um, beyond this. And then in that congressional race, um,

I'm not sure how you get to the right of Eli Crane, and I know that they have made some efforts to do that.

But this is a sprawling rural district, very difficult to campaign in, very difficult to penetrate a message through because it stretches nearly the entire state. So I think just as the incumbent, even though he's new, you'd really need to mount –

a campaign with a lot of resources and have some grave mistake that the incumbent had made in the eyes of the primary voters to, to see some movement there.

How does the state look generally? You know, we're talking about a state that everyone says is a toss up that Biden carried by a little under 11000 votes in 2020. Katie Hobbs, the governor, beat Carrie Lake by less than a percent. Democrats have won the last three Senate races, but only Mark Kelly's margin over Lake Masters was really outside, you know, a couple of percentage points. How does Arizona shape up?

four months or three and a half months out from the general election. What are the trends that you're seeing? The trends that I'm seeing are that that I'd rather be a Republican than a Democrat this cycle in Arizona. The Democrats have had, as you noted, a couple of

really good cycles. There's a number of reasons for that. In fact, last cycle actually, you know, Republicans had a real advantage in terms of, uh, turnout, um, and a combination of things, including, I would say candidate quality in some races, um, bitter primaries in other races, um,

And also real challenges with independent voters and even some Republican voters and others. Really, it was almost as if in a few races they handed it over to the Democrats. And at one Democratic election,

operative who is a friend of mine who was involved in some of these races put it best to me because I said, do you think we're now a blue state? And he said, no. He said, Arizonans desperately want to vote Republican. You guys just keep nominating people that they won't vote for. And so in terms of looking at this cycle where I think the issue mix is, you know, issue one, two, three is

And, you know, economy is right up there. And a lot of people see these when you sit in focus groups, as I do frequently, they see these issues as interconnected in their lives. So I think that Republicans have their best opportunity in a while to

to really perform well in these races. I think Carrie's got, I think the Senate race is going to be a coin flip. It's going to be another barn burner. And, but I think she is, is well positioned there. These congressional races, you know, I think are, are the competitive ones. You know, Republicans need to win those nationally and,

And then, you know, and I had this discussion recently with another Democratic operative because they said, well, this is the abortion access measure. That is what's going to save us in all these races. And I said, well, OK, but if the abortion access measure is at 55 percent.

and Donald Trump is winning the state by six to eight points, that means a lot of the people you're turning out for the abortion access measure are actually voting for Donald J. Trump.

And they said, yeah, that's a problem. So I don't see that as something that's going to tip the scale in these races, because I just think turnout is going to be sky high. It's going to be the Super Bowl of elections. Everybody's going to vote. And I don't think a ballot measure is is what's going to be their motivator at the end of the day.

One of the things that stands out to me, Arizona has a large and growing Latino population. I think the exit poll said it was 19 percent in 2020. And while President Trump did worse in 2020 than he did in 2016, he did not slip much, if at all, among Latinos.

In 2022, Carrie Lake in the exit poll did much better than Trump did with Latinos and did much better than he did percentage wise in Latino heavy Yuma and Santa Cruz counties. Do you see a Latino movement towards the Republicans that mirror the sorts of things that we have been reading about in national polls?

Yeah, we do see that in all of these races where I've been polling or doing focus groups. It is. It's up for grabs. And President Trump is performing very well.

among that slice of the electorate. There are issues that pop in the polling that don't among the non-Latino voters, at least not to the degree, including crime, homelessness, the economy, food prices, education, accessibility.

And so there is an openness to both candidates. I think that it is...

political malpractice to not be speaking to these voters in their language frequently. You just can't win statewide without performing

uh, among this group. If you're a Republican, you don't necessarily have to win Hispanic voters, but you have to be competitive. And frankly, I think there's a good chance president Trump does, uh, win or at least tie among Hispanic voters in the state. And so, so they're, they're there, they're open. There's a willingness Republicans, frankly, have ignored them for a long time and Democrats have taken them for granted. Um,

And so now they very much are where in a spot where if you get to them with the message, if you show up, if you talk to them, you know, you can win them. And there's going to be a lot of ticket splitting in this state. But I think among that voter block in particular, they're not in one part of the state. They're all over. So it really doesn't matter what.

What kind of race you're in, whether it's a legislative, congressional, U.S. Senate or president, you just it's not a nice to do. It's a need to do. Last question. We've talked about the Senate. We've talked about the Schweikert race. We've talked about the trends.

A lot of Arizona Republicans, when I was out there teaching at Arizona State last year, talked about Juan Siskamani, the congressman from the 6th District, which is affluent Tucson and the rural southeastern part of the state, Cochise County, Greenlee County, stuff like that. This is basically, I think it was Biden carried it by under a point. He had an uncommonly or unexpectedly close race there.

last time and the same person Christian Engel is running against him this time. People say he's got star potential, but he's got to win this race. How do you see the multimillion dollar effort that both sides are going to put in to either defeat or save Congressman Siskamani? This is a guy who is an immigrant himself. He immigrated to this country with his family, became a U.S. citizen, and

and has a unique voice as it relates to the broken immigration system and border security. And I would say very much is a rising star, not only in Arizona politics, but from a national perspective, he's

I think a voice and brings a perspective that, that frankly is, is lacking in either party when it comes to dealing with some of these policy issues. This is an area of the state that is, you know,

that really the path for Democrats to win statewide is running up the score in Pima County, which is Metro Tucson. And that is how they win statewide. So to have somebody from that region who is popular and knows how to win,

um, is a, uh, is something that Republicans haven't had, um, in a very long time. Um, I was not surprised by the results in that race last year because I'm, by the way, I'm born and raised in, uh, Tucson. I know that community and the district that the new district, Arizona six, uh,

um president biden won it by 430 some votes um uh martha mcsally lost it by a point one cycle she won it by a point another cycle um uh basically every race that you look at here has been um has been a squeaker

And that's, I think, just kind of the way it is. He's about as well positioned as you could be going into a race like this. And it will be a race that determines the makeup of Congress. But.

Again, I think hard work pays off here. Being present in the district as a member, you know, focusing on the issues of the district. I think he's done that in droves and I think he enters this race with the wind at his back. Well, Scarp, thank you for your insights. Where can my listeners follow your work?

They can follow me on Twitter at at Scarpinato, S-C-A-R-P-I-N-A-T-O, and send me a message. I'd love to connect with anyone who wants to talk more about all the exciting stuff here. It's never a boring election cycle in Arizona anymore. You can count on that. Well, that is certainly true. And I look forward to having you back on Beyond the Polls. All right. Talk to you later. Bye.

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We know that Democrats are going to be using the abortion rights issue as one of their main appeals to the electorate. Some states, that's more effective than others. Nevada is known to have a bit of a libertarian streak, and that means that incumbent Senator Jackie Rosen is trying to use that against her Republican opponent, Sam Brown. The latest ad she's got up is a powerful way to make that point. Let's listen.

I was excited to learn that I was going to have a boy, but I got devastating news. The baby would not survive.

Before Sam Brown ran for office in Nevada, he ran in Texas, where he pushed one of the most extreme abortion bans. Because of the law Sam Brown pushed for, I had to leave Texas to get the care I needed. Now I live in Nevada, and I cannot watch Sam Brown take away our rights here, too. I'm Jackie Rosen, and I approve this message.

It's hard not to feel sympathetic with this woman. This woman, Valerie, is a black woman who tells the story of a pregnancy gone wrong, that this is not somebody who had an elective abortion, is somebody who had to have an abortion in order to help her survive. And because the fetus, the unborn child, was not going to live. The pictures show that sympathy. There's

A close-up of her talking to the camera. There's pictures of her in a doctor's office. They're looking at pictures from the ultrasound. It's just hard not to say, yeah, this person, it's really sad what happened. It's tragic. But we're on her side.

And then you've got the attack, which is because of what Sam Brown allegedly said and pushed for in Texas, Sam Brown can't be trusted here in Nevada. And she says, I moved from Texas and now I live in Nevada. I'm not going to let him do this. This is not the sort of angry attack ad that you usually see. Usually you'll see angry.

angry pictures, you'll see lots of out-of-focus things, you'll see harsh music. You don't see that change here. And Sam Brown's picture comes up on the screen. You continue with the sympathetic music, and he's very much in focus. So you have the idea that you are sympathizing with Valerie, the woman who is on the table,

And you get angry under the theory of the ad with Sam. One of the things I like in these ads they do here, which is when she's saying things or when the voiceover says things about Brown, his picture is on the screen, his name is on the screen, words are on the screen that support what the voice says.

The target audience here is in one sense obvious and in one sense not obvious. It's obvious that this is a target of looking at women. It's also because Valerie is a black woman that's aimed at black voters. There is a substantial black population in Nevada, especially in and around Las Vegas. And we know that they have been trending, not Republican in the sense that

They're going to vote Republican, but less overwhelmingly Democrat that the Democratic Party is used to winning the black vote 90 to 10. And if they win it 80 to 20, that causes problems in a close election. So this has two target audiences.

It's unclear whether or not this ad is going to be effective. It's unclear whether this is a motivational issue. Polls do show that in places like Nevada, super majorities of voters do support abortion rights. It is yet to be seen that people who would otherwise vote for the Republican candidate will switch on the basis of this issue. It will drive turnout. It will keep Democratic candidates.

voters loyalty will it switch voters well that's crucial to Jackie Rosen because all the polls right now say that Trump is ahead in Nevada Trump is lost in Nevada by a little under three points in 2020 but the polls say he's leading there by five or six points if that is true on election day Rosen's gonna need about one in ten Trump voters to vote for her or else Sam Brown is going to be the senator and

This is the sort of issue that she's betting can do it. This is the sort of ad that won't turn these people off. It will appeal to them and as a result may, supported by other ads later in the campaign, do the trick. I don't know if it's going to work, but it's a sound strategy. It's well executed. And that's why it's this week's ad of the week.

That's it for this week. Join me next week as I'll discuss the intricacies of the Democratic Party's convention rules with a leading Democratic National Committee expert. Until then, let's reach for the stars together as we journey beyond the polls.

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