Hurricane Joe Strikes Again
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Welcome back to The Horse Race. The world is panicking, but we're staying calm, analyzing the political chaos unfolding before us. This week, we'll dissect next week's Florida and Ohio primaries and talk about campaigning and the general election in the era of the coronavirus. The horses are in their gates. They're off! ♪

Joining me on Round the Horn this week is a good friend and an erstwhile observer of all things American politics, Jeremy Peters, New York Times political reporter. Jeremy, welcome to the horse race. Thanks for having me, Henry. Well, as a New Yorker, I'm sure you know Yogi Berra's old saying, it ain't over until it's over. But with regards to the Democratic race, I have to ask you, is it over or is it over?

I don't think with Bernie Sanders you can ever really say with any certainty what he's going to do. I mean, remember last time how long it took him to endorse Hillary Clinton when it was very clear that he had no path to the Democratic nomination. I think there are a couple factors that are going to complicate any type of predictions about what he does. One is...

He's an unpredictable guy. He doesn't know himself what he's going to do. And I think number two, he correctly understands that there are an awful lot of people who have bought into this Bernie movement. And if he all of a sudden drops out after a couple of bad primary nights, even though those couple of bad primary nights have made it inconsequential,

increasingly unlikely, if not impossible, to get to the majority and the delegates, they're going to feel really down, disappointed, and dejected that Bernie's dropping out. So I think he has to consider how he's going to frame this to his supporters, what he's going to tell them about this election, and what he's going to tell them in terms of how they should view Bernie

the Democratic nominee, because remember, a lot of these people will be inclined to say, well, if Bernie is not the nominee, then I'm going to stay home. And I think if you listen to people like AOC, you know, other supporters of the Bernie movement, I don't know that Bernie himself understands what I'm about to say, but there is a recognition. And I did hear this when I listened to AOC speak the other night after, after Bernie's losses, that

They need to defeat Trump. That is the Democratic Party's primary goal. That is why Bernie is losing, because people want to go with a candidate who can beat Trump and they don't see that as Bernie. So he's got a lot to think about. His hardcore supporters have a lot to think. You know, I looked at what he said yesterday.

And it struck me the defiance was there, the I've got to stay in it for the movement, the revolution that you just talked about was there. And in the questions that he said he was going to pose to Joe Biden, I saw the...

the framing that you talked about as well, that each of those questions were essentially questions that asked Joe Biden, are you willing to move the party to the left enough on policy for me to be able to tell my supporters in a good conscience that the revolution may be delayed, but it is coming? Do you see that

Biden would be willing to move the party or is that something that's going to be a source of tension to them as they do this dance over the next week or two or however long to see whether or not Bernie goes out sooner rather than later? Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine what that might look like. I don't see Biden as somebody who easily capitulates to anybody, let alone Bernie Sanders.

I think anytime candidates like Bernie, who represent the movement part of a political party, or in this case, an entity that really isn't even part of the Democratic Party, but just kind of a group onto its own further to the left.

It's never really been an easy, seamless partnership. And the demands that these candidates or these political leaders make end up being too much for a mainstream political candidate to take. I also think there's not a very realistic chance that...

For example, Biden were to agree to name certain people to his cabinet. We know those kinds of things never work out. So I don't know what he could give Bernie Sanders in terms of tangible policy benchmarks here, goals. I just don't see it. Which means Bernie stays in, which means Bernie continues to

fight the losing fight, much the way Ted Kennedy stayed in all the way to the convention in 1980 against Jimmy Carter. Even though he won a couple of primaries in the end, it was foreordained, but yet he stayed in to keep the liberal cause burning bright. And Bernie Sanders has every, you know, more reason than Ted Kennedy did in the day of internet fundraising and instant social communication.

to do the same thing, even as he increasingly faces not daunting odds, but impossible odds.

I would put another historical parallel out there too, and that would be Pat Buchanan in 1992. Pat Buchanan knew he wasn't going to win, and he stayed in until the California primary in June of '92. It was very clear he did not have a path to get the delegates he needed. And in both of those cases, Ted Kennedy, the one you cited, and the one I just cited, guess what happened?

that nominee who was challenged lost. So I think there is real peril there if Bernie does stay in the race and continues to make noise. That said, I think what we've seen so far may suggest that the appetite among Democratic voters and independents who don't like Trump is so great, so considerable to defeat him

That it overwhelms this urge that many of them may have to stay home, even among those who support Bernie Sanders right now. Not the diehards, but I've got to tell you, Henry, I was out in Michigan before the Michigan primary. I spent the weekend there and I have never heard voters think so strategically about their voters.

for the nomination. They are looking at their options and sizing up both candidates, Bernie and Biden, and looking at Bernie and saying he can't beat Trump, and that's all I care about. I haven't seen voters say,

say that so openly or have that at the front of their minds in such a degree ever before. And I think that that is a good sign for Joe Biden. And if I were Donald Trump, especially with all the other things going on in the world right now, I'd be very worried about that.

Yeah, I think that's one reason why you see Trump tweet using his tweets to try and encourage the diehard Bernie supporters to give up the ship. You spread the idea that the Democrats are rigging it again against their guy. And it's not...

obviously an attempt to get their votes, although I'm sure they would like them. But it's rather an attempt to give up that when you're behind every vote that the opposition can't turn out as half a vote for you. Do you see, again, I looked at the exit polls and it was evident what you just said, you know, 86 percent or more of the Democrats who went to the polls in Michigan said that they would vote for the nominee no matter what. And

And massive supermajority said their primary vote was to vote for Trump. But among the 14 percent who weren't sure, Sanders carried it by double digits. And among the third or so who say they prefer people who agree with them on ideas to oppose to beating Trump, Sanders carried that group, too. If.

chance of 10 percent of that group falls away, that's not an inconsiderable number. Is that something that should worry Biden or is he just going to have to plow on, focus on the middle and let that slim minority not govern his considerations once he becomes the nominee? Well, if what the last four years have taught us about politics is any guide, running a

for the middle isn't the way to win national elections anymore. It certainly isn't if you are the Republican nominee. It's certainly not Trump's approach.

I think, though, that Trump is such a unique figure. It's hard to really take any lessons from his political success and apply them to other Republicans, let alone another political party entirely. So I think that Biden is served best by reminding people, and he understands this, that he is the safe alternative.

alternative, that he is the one who can unite people in the common cause of defeating Trump. And there are enough people out there. I mean, this is the most unpopular president that we've ever had in the history of polling. There are enough people out there

who see him as a unique threat and a unique danger, and they are so motivated and galvanized to get rid of him that I really do think they would vote for just about anybody with a D after their name. And I would include Bernie Sanders in that category. I think that if Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden's political fortunes were reversed here, we could be having this same conversation about what people would be doing in November with Bernie as the nominee.

Well, and that brings us up ahead to the general election, that as we're recording this, I think that Biden is ahead by a little bit more than 6% on the RealClearPolitics average in one-on-one matchup with President Trump. Clearly, if he beats Trump by six points, the presidency is his. There's no way Trump can win an electoral college majority if he loses by six points. Even his Midwest-heavy coalition can't do that.

How do you see the race unfolding? Do you think that six-point lead is pretty much solid, that all Biden has to do is stay healthy and stay sane and that's going to happen? Or do you think there's a chance for Trump to fight his way back into this race? I would never count Donald Trump out. I think that the Republicans I talk to are certainly not...

optimistic about their chances in November, not after the events of the last week and Trump's failure to convince

investors, world leaders and the like that he's handling this coronavirus crisis appropriately. There's a real doubt in my mind more than ever that he can win. That doesn't mean I think that he's going to lose. I don't, I got out of the prediction business like most journalists should have. And I think did in 2016 after, after that, um,

We bungled that one. But I do think that when you're looking at Joe Biden, okay, he's had two really great Tuesdays. He hasn't changed fundamentally as a candidate. He's still Joe Biden. He's still prone to the same gaffes. He's still...

He's still going to strike people as not having the same cogency that he had when he ran for office eight years ago last time. I think that there are risks in putting him out there in a big way. I think that's why his advisors kept him back for the early part of the primary process. And there is absolutely every opportunity for him

to screw this up in a way that Trump can really take advantage of. I also think that you can't, you can't downplay the significance of something that you mentioned earlier, which is Trump's campaigns ability to press the vote on the other side. Now I, there are going to be plenty of Bernie voters who say, you know, screw it. I'm just, I can't vote for someone like Joe Biden. Um,

And Trump is going to the plan has been all along. I mean, I remember talking to people at the RNC about this in over the summer, even that if Joe Biden was a nominee, they were going to go into Pennsylvania and remind all the Bernie supporters they could find that this is being stolen once again. I think that's a lesson.

and effective argument this time around because Hillary, in addition to her other flaws as a candidate, had a DNC behind her that wasn't always operating in a way that gave them the plausible deniability, that gave them clean hands to say, no, no, no, this has been a fair process.

This time around, Tom Perez has run things differently. Joe Biden's association with the DNC is not nearly as strong and as direct as Hillary's was in 2016. Get to Smoothie King today and try the new blueberry, raspberry, or watermelon lemonade smoothies. They're all made with real fruit, real juice, and no bad stuff. Just check out the no-no list at SmoothieKing.com. Try the new lemonade smoothies at Smoothie King today. So I think it's harder for...

Biden's opponents to make that kind of argument. That doesn't mean that they won't try, though. Yeah. And then you've got the question is it's one thing if it's a six point lead, you're not going to suppress enough of the vote by discouraging them to make up that. But

If it's a three-point lead, every one of those little votes on the margin counts. And we already know that Donald Trump can win an electoral college victory by losing the popular vote by margins that are outside or close to the margin of error in polls. That's right.

But that's, yeah, that's just going to, it's still a very difficult road ahead for the president. Oh, yeah. I mean, 77,000 votes in three states. That's less than the average, you know, Saturday afternoon college football game, you know, audience in a stadium. I mean, you could fit those people into a college football stadium in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Like that's, it's so small.

And I think that everyone going into this expects it to be a race on the margins again. I think this is going to be, as I've heard Republicans certainly say, a race in a handful of states for a few hundred thousand votes. And every vote, as you say, on the margins is really going to matter.

Which is why there was a poll from Public Policy Polling that was released today, a Democratic firm, but they often poll without a client in a race. And they had Biden ahead by three points in Wisconsin.

48 to 45, and they had Trump's job approval rating at about 45%. The plus side for Biden was that undecideds disproportionately disliked Trump, which suggests that they may not like Biden. But just as you pointed out, the desire to defeat Trump will eventually bring them back in the fold. The flip side is, is what happens if Trump manages to get his job approval rating up to 48 or 49%?

If he's pulling his job approval rating, then he's got a shot to pull out some of these states where every vote on the margin matters. What sense do you have? I've talked to a lot of people and most people I talk to say there is, well, you could rely on a graveyard with people whose careers were damaged or killed by saying there was a ceiling to Donald Trump's support in the last five years.

Do you think that there might be a ceiling absent Trump suddenly becoming the grandfatherly statesman-like figure political consultants have dreamed of him being, of maturing into? Do you think there is a hard ceiling at like 46 percent or so that there's only a certain amount of people who are open to him and that the rest of the minds are closed enough that's very hard for him to...

even if he were to successfully combat this virus, to get to that point where he'll win it on his own accord. I think Biden being the Democratic nominee helps

ensure that there is a ceiling. I think if it were Bernie Sanders, that might help convince some people that, okay, Trump is bad, but I can't go for Bernie Sanders. Independence, that is. I think...

The polling, I mean, you know, I'm not nearly the sophisticated numbers that you are, Henry, but just looking at his approval rating, I mean, the fact that he until last month, I believe, if it wasn't last month, it was very recently, though, until last month.

was never above 46% in the Gallup approval poll, which is the gold standard, of course. But 46% is crucial because that's the percentage of the popular vote that he won in 2016. So, I mean, if that's not a ceiling, I don't know what is.

So that means we can expect down in the mud, nasty attempt to make Joe Biden into Hillary 2.0 that Trump won last time because 18% of Americans, as the exit poll showed, didn't like both candidates. And he won that group by over 15%. People who waited till the last minute and decided that the devil they didn't know from New York was worse than the devilists that they did know from New York.

So it looks like his chance of reelection then, if there's a ceiling on his support, is to try and recreate that, to get people to say, I don't like Joe Biden, I don't like Donald Trump, and when push comes to shove, I'll throw in again with that guy. But Joe Biden's not Hillary Clinton. If that's the undercurrent of the strategy, how plausible of a path to victory do you think Trump really has?

I think it's entirely possible. I don't think it's very strong. It's the same scenario that Trump's advisors talked about in 2016 when they said they needed to get an inside straight to win. And the Trump campaign, the Republican Party fully understands this, Henry. They have been operating under the assumption all along that they would have to turn out

not just Trump voters, but given the support that Trump had lost from the people who voted for him in 2016, they would have to go out and find people who liked Trump that weren't regular voters. That's hard and it's expensive. They have the money.

I don't know if they'll have enough, but they have an awful lot of money, and I know that that's what they are trying to do right now. But think about that. That means going into Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and really going into the sticks in a lot of these communities and finding people who don't live in densely populated areas.

But you've got to convince them to vote. That's not like standard campaign work when you take a team of canvassers and roam a neighborhood in a major suburb. It's hard to find these people. You can target them online increasingly with sophistication and the good software programs that these people have. But it's not a sure bet by any means.

It's also why every time they have a rally, they will tell you how many people came out, but they will tell you how many people weren't registered to vote. There do

doing and taking those data from every one of those rallies. And it's clearly trying to use those rallies to identify exactly those people, the people who are interested enough in Trump that they'll show up but have never voted or aren't registered to vote. And they'll probably spend a bootle amount of money, not as much as Michael Bloomberg did, but a bootle amount of money to go after these people and say, hey, if you took two hours out of your day to hear the guy, can't you take 10 minutes out of your day on Tuesday, November, whatever it is, and show up and support the guy?

Yeah, that's exactly right. I think, like you said, that that's hardly any guarantee that they will. I think, you know, the other thing you have to remember in talking about these states and the disservice that national polling can do to our understanding of the race is polls have consistently shown, you know, my news organization, The New York Times,

has run these numbers. And you mentioned the Bloomberg campaign. I know the Bloomberg campaign did these types of polls themselves and have the same, it came up with the same numbers that we did virtually, but they, they looked at the swing States and,

And they found that Trump is much stronger there than he is nationally. Now, of course, that makes sense for a guy who lost a popular vote by three million. But that's something to keep in mind here that Trump, you know, I think he's he's he's you say his approval rating, Wisconsin, I think 48 percent that that's.

That's still not above 50. And as an incumbent, you know, the golden rule of politics here is you never want to be below majority approval as an incumbent. And it's where Trump has been his entire presidency. It's just closer in those swing states. He's slightly less unpopular in those swings. Yeah.

And that's the silver lining in the Trump campaign. He's less unpopular in the swing states and consequently, to quote Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber, that means I've got a chance. But...

How does the coronavirus play into this? That clearly his speech last night was panned widely. I wrote a column suggesting it may not be, you know, may actually be a good thing, even though the speech itself was not all that great because it shows that the president is waking up to the severity of the crisis. Right. Clearly right now it's hurting him, but lots of things have hurt this guy in the past. And he bounces back that, you know, Ukraine, his

His ratings go down four or five points. And then he bounces back to a new high within five months and the government shut down. What would have to take for this one to finally stick? I mean, you don't want to be morbid in any way. We hope that this is one case where I think everyone hopes the president will be successful no matter what the political fallout is because it means fewer Americans would die.

But what would it have to take for this one to finally be the thing that breaks through and and sinks him to a level of support where it's just not feasible to think that he can come back? I think it would require something that we haven't seen happen with these crises during his presidency before. I mean, I can't even imagine.

I've just lost track of all of the events that we said would spell, you know, doom for him politically, you know, from Charlottesville to North Korea. I mean, it, it, it,

go on and on this, this guy, I mean, which is why I don't take the doom scenario that I'm hearing in the last 48 hours about coronavirus, because this is the boy who cried wolf. I've heard this for three years and it hasn't happened. No, it hasn't happened. And it started happening before he was even elected with access Hollywood. And we assumed that that was the, I mean, that's, that's, you know, that's the ultimate, um,

story of his durability, I mean, his seeming invincibility when it comes to these crises that would otherwise end a political career of a more conventional politician, at least. So I think something would have to happen that we've never seen happen before over the course of his presidency. And that's that this

current crisis is of such a sustained duration and is so severe that it is still with voters come November.

And I certainly hope for humanity's sake, that's not the case. I think probably most Americans would agree whether or not you hate Trump or you think he's the greatest president in the history of the country. But I think that's the kind of environment we're looking at right now where people just don't absorb these ideas.

events unless it's really affecting them immediately. This is an event that is affecting people immediately in a more personal and frightening and life upending way than we have ever seen during his presidency. So certainly the stakes here, I would say the potential here for political harm there are more significant than anything we've seen before. That said,

November is eight months away and an awful lot can happen in between then. The coronavirus situation could get much better. It certainly did in China. And I don't know that the United States is ready to take the steps that China took to make that possible. But certainly eight months from now,

I, you know, I'm no scientist, so I don't want to predict what the spread of a pandemic looks like between now and Election Day. But if it lasts and it continues to, I think, weigh on people the way it is now with the anxiety and the uncertainty, that is that is not a situation that bodes well for reelection.

Yeah. No, I tend to agree. I actually think that if it lasts into the summertime, the president's pretty much a goner. We're sitting in month four of this. Given that it's against the backdrop of a majority of people who already have disapproved of him, it's going to be very hard for him to turn that around again.

Well, Jeremy, it's been a delight to have you on, and I would love to have you back, particularly close to the time when your book is coming out, and be able to talk about what you've been finding over the last couple of years on your travels across the country. So thank you for being on The Horse Race, and look forward to having you back soon. Thank you, Henry. I'm glad to come back anytime.

Well, joining me on this week's State of Play is Daryl Rowland, Public Affairs Editor at the Columbus Dispatch in the Buckeye State, one of the states voting on Tuesday's Super Tuesday, Mark 3. Daryl, welcome to the horse race. Thank you. It's good to be here, Henry.

Well, coronavirus is affecting campaigning and every public gathering all around the country and indeed around the world. Has campaigning shut down in Ohio since this became the thing to do?

Well, it's interesting. I think we were right on the dividing line. Former Vice President Biden was in Columbus here for a small-scale event. There's probably only maybe 100 people there. But both he and Senator Sanders had rallies scheduled that night, that night being on Wednesday night. I'm sorry, Tuesday night.

up in Cleveland. And word came down from our governor, Mike DeWine, discouraging large gatherings, the

So they consulted with it. The governor's office consulted with both campaigns. And it wasn't an order or anything like that, but both campaigns decided not to hold the rally, which was kind of disappointing to some of us reporters. We wanted to sort of see the dueling rallies. Get to Smoothie King today and try the new blueberry, raspberry, or watermelon lemonade smoothies. They're all made with real fruit, real juice, and no bad stuff. Just check out the no-no list at SmoothieKing.com. Try the new lemonade smoothies at Smoothie King today.

You know, who got the most, who, which crowds were the craziest and the loudest and, you know, what they said about each other. But instead they canceled and former Vice President Biden flew back to Delaware and then I think spoke from Philadelphia that night. And, you know, Senator Sanders then never did come to Ohio.

Well, is anybody expected to come to Ohio now, or is this just something that's going to be fought out on the airwaves and by volunteers going door to door or people doing phone banks?

I think it's going to be mainly the latter. I guess if the Biden people were in town and their, well, now former campaign manager, Greg Schultz, is actually from Ohio, so I was conversing with him, and I said, well, is Biden going to come back? Of course, at that time, again, they had a debate scheduled in Arizona on Sunday night, and

I said, it doesn't look like he does. He said, well, don't count us out. But yeah, I think it's unlikely. And especially now, as I'm sure you've seen, they're holding virtual events. They scheduled one for Illinois, another for Florida, which are two of the other three states, aside from Ohio, that are holding primaries. So yeah, welcome to the presidential campaign in the age of the coronavirus. We're all kind of

Just sitting back and marveling and learning how this is going. And, you know, you mentioned door to door. I even wonder if, you know, a lot of people are reluctant to answer the door anyhow. And, you know, if we're huddled down at, you know, self-quarantining or whatever, God help them. Well, this raises the prospect of what happens on an election day if everyone's too scared to show up. But, of course, you have.

as many other states have, mail-in balloting and early voting. Tell us about how many people have been mailing their ballots in and whether that already means that maybe Biden has got a win locked in, regardless of what happens on Sunday night.

Right. Well, as you say, we have two forms of early voting. One is how we used to do absentee voting here in Ohio. But now anyone can get a ballot. You can print it out or whatever and mail it in and just have to be mailed in by Election Day.

And or you can go each county has a voting center, which is usually the county board of elections. And you can vote what's called early in person there. And both have been very healthy. This starts about a month after the primary. So this actually started to like.

That would have put us like between New Hampshire and Nevada, I think. And we got a healthy turnout even way back then. In fact, I have an intern working for me. One of the things I assigned him to do was send him out on assignment that first day early voting saying, you know,

Why do people cast doubt on the first day? Because the race was – we were still like, what, a dozen candidates? Why then in those large debate stages? So it was an interesting story. So a lot of people probably have thrown away their votes. The other factor, of course, with early voting is people locking in their choices.

As I'm sure you know, Senator Sanders is putting a lot of stock in getting the one-on-one, the man-o-man-o, if you will, Sunday night with the former vice president now in Washington, D.C.,

And, you know, scoring points there. And I'm sure you heard his announcement the other day, Senator Sanders' announcement that he's staying in the race and looking forward to that and ticked off a whole bunch of things he wants to know from Joe Biden. But even if he does turn it around, it could be a little too late. Yeah.

Again, you have locked in votes. Ohio is never going to be a good state for Bernie Sanders anyhow. And I say that for a few reasons. One, we have lots of Democrats, but fewer liberal Democrats that would naturally follow Bernie Sanders. Four years ago, this is a state that Hillary Clinton won reasonably easily. It's a state that Donald Trump carried by over eight percentage points then in the general election four years ago.

So it's not necessarily fertile territory for him to take a stand and turn things around. And you look across the country, is it going to happen in Florida? You've got a lot of Cuban folks settling down there who are not taking too kindly to his campaigning with the idea that I'm friendly to some of what Castro did. I don't think that's going to go well in Florida.

Illinois is kind of a middle-of-the-road state. And former Vice President Biden has done really well in upper Midwest states, in Minnesota, certainly. Lord, he won Massachusetts. You think if you can't win Minnesota or Massachusetts, it's an understanding. It's how are you going to win Ohio? That's sort of the attitude. Yeah. I take a look, and I look Ohioans.

Ohio's basically got five significant media markets, Dayton, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. Every one of them has a significant African-American community. African-Americans have been a bedrock of the Biden campaign. You've got white working class voters that voted for Sanders against Hillary Clinton but seem to be backing Biden. That's the other mainstay of the Democratic campaign.

bastions in Ohio. And you don't have, outside of the Ohio State University and a few small colleges, towns, you don't have the sort of young person base that could come out and dominate a campaign. And you don't have an extensive Latino population, which is the other group that's tended to favor Sanders. And it looks to me like this is going to be a pretty easy Biden victory. Tell me why I'm wrong or if I'm right. Yeah.

Well, I can't argue with a single point you just made, Henry. You look at the 2016 precinct by precinct totals and Senator Sanders' most success was, yeah, in Columbus, Ohio, in the precinct surrounding the Ohio State University, in Athens, Ohio, which is Ohio University, up the

the town that contains Bowling Green University, which is Bowling Green, Oxford, Ohio. We see all these names where Miami University is. That was his high watermark here. And again, you look at one of his central premises of this year's election is, hey, I can expand the electorate beyond this base. We haven't seen it in other states, so I'm not sure how he's going to do it in Ohio.

And you're absolutely right. Again, talking to the Biden folks when they were through here earlier this week, we were talking about the amazing turnaround, almost back from the dead, if you will, from just before the South Carolina primary to now through Super Tuesday and now after Michigan and everything. Mm-hmm.

And they said, well, yeah, well, you know, we like people talking that way. But to us, it was always going to be this way. We needed to get to a state that looked more like America. And the black voter has been very, very loyal to former Vice President Biden, presumably because of his association with the first black president, of course. But also, I think he's genuinely well liked on his own regard. Yeah.

You know, and Senator Sanders has just not made the sale too well in those minority communities. And you're right, Hispanic population, we're very much, you know, below the national average in Ohio. So let's jump ahead to the general election. Ohio traditionally has been the bellwether state, but in 2016, it blew that characterization out of the water, going for Trump by the large margin that did, even as Trump lost the popular vote.

I'm sure that the Biden campaign thinks it or would like to say that it can make Ohio competitive. But do you see any sign? Is this another state that has gone from being competitive to being more one party than it used to be?

That's going to be one of the big questions I will be writing about the day after the election, quite frankly, because that is a huge question. You're right. I mean, we here in Ohio say, well, we kept the bellwether status because, you know, the person that Ohio supported did end up becoming the president. So.

And just put that really small asterisk next to it, would you? Okay. I will do that. You know, so, yeah, Ohio has only missed twice since 1896, and that was in 1944 –

When FDR's opponent had like an Ohio governor as running mate, so obviously the Buckeye State stayed loyal. And in 1960, went for Nixon over Kennedy by just a little bit. But other than that, it's been right on. And of course, the other major fact of anyone who covers politics in Ohio, no Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio from Abraham Lincoln on.

Well, then I would expect that Donald Trump will show up at least once or twice in Ohio to try and make sure that that continues to happen and to try and continue to make sure that he gets reelected. Because if he loses Ohio, he's got no shot at winning the presidency.

Well, that's the thing. And indeed his first visit of calendar year 2020 was to Toledo, Ohio in Northwest Ohio, which of course catches an Ohio media market and bleeds over up toward Detroit as well. So it's a bit of a twofer. Um, he's not been back since. And of course he also has canceled rallies. So, yeah, but you're right. He's given lots of attention to Ohio. Um, Bob Paduchick, who's one of his top advisors is from Akron, Ohio. So he has influence down this way. Um,

But I don't know that I would – I don't think you can write Ohio off from the DSCOM. I think you're – because I think you're right. I think certainly the central states is the ones everyone says. It's Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. I mean, if Dems can just return to the old blue wall, they're almost certainly going to win. But, yeah, if that blue tide rises as hot as Ohio – and it did twice for Obama and Biden –

You know, I see no way Trump would ever win. So this is almost like speaking of firewall. He's got to win Ohio to have a shot, you know, then preserve those small victories he had in the states to the north and to the northwest of us.

Well, the Democrats are going to be looking at two Ohio congressional districts in the fall. They're going to be looking at Steve Chabot outside of Cincinnati, and they're going to try and take another shot at Troy Balderson, one of your suburban congressmen whose base is actually outside of Franklin County. Do you see that the Democrats have a shot in those districts? And if so, why?

I do not think they do in the Troy Balderson district. Last time, as you know, it's been a long-time Republican district. Pat Tiber had it for years. Before that, John Kasich, our former governor, and, of course, the congressman.

the commentator at CNN now and the erstwhile 2016 candidate himself. This is his old congressional district, the 12th congressional district. The Democrats really took a hard shot at getting this. And of course you want to get the person in that first year when they're not, they can't run a reelection campaign. So we had a special election in August of 2016, which was just to fill out the term for the rest of the year.

and then a general election for the full two-year term in November. The Democratic candidate, who's from Columbus here, so he was from the center of the population,

came up just short both times. I mean, it was a huge upset, quite frankly, because T-Rex had been winning these races by 20 or 30 points. I don't think that DCCC, I don't think other folks are as focused on this. I don't think, frankly, the candidates, there is a Democratic primary between two women candidates. I just don't think they're going to

had the wherewithal that Daniel Conner did, the Democratic candidate in 2016. So I think Balderson's got to be regarded by most as a safe seat. Cincinnati's another question. That looked to be a good contest until the Democrats got into some goofiness and some trouble down there on just some personal financial things and some junk on all this campaign. But Chabot has been there.

You know, for much of the past several decades. Now, I'm just looking at this, you know, it's an hour and a half down the road from us, but I would think that's going to be wearing thin, number one. Number two, his district contains so much of Cincinnati, and all Cincinnati itself is doing is going more and more blue. So that may be your more contested race as well.

Well, I will keep my eyes on Cincinnati, and I'll see whether or not turkeys are raining from the sky on Steve Chabot, as I refer to the old WKRP sketch. Oh, my, the humanity, the humanity. Oh, my goodness. Shades of thousands square, and yeah. Yeah.

Well, Darrell. I love that show growing up. I did, too. I must confess. Well, Darrell, thank you for your thoughts on Ohio. I'd love to have you back, and welcome to your first visit on the horse race. All right. Anytime you need it, Henry. Appreciate the time.

Political ads are designed to persuade, but sometimes it's not about boosting a particular candidate. This week's ad of the week comes from the conservative Club for Growth, and let's see if you can figure out what their aim is. Let's listen.

In 2016, the DNC rigged it. 2020's deja vu. They'll do anything to stop Bernie. The fishy fiasco in Iowa. The media machine hyping dilettante losers. And they say Bernie can't win? And after Mike's $600 million couldn't get it done, now the billionaires are propping up Joe Biden.

Get to Smoothie King today and try the new blueberry, raspberry, or watermelon lemonade smoothies. They're all made with real fruit, real juice, and no bad stuff. Just check out the no-no list at SmoothieKing.com. Try the new lemonade smoothies at Smoothie King today. Because they own him. Don't let them steal it. And if they do, remember in November, Club for Growth Action is responsible for the content of this advertising. Well, have you figured it out?

This is an ad whose target is, shockingly for the conservative Club for Growth, Bernie Sanders supporters. The point here is trying to show Bernie Sanders supporters that they can't trust the Democratic establishment. That's why they're focusing on the allegation that the Democratic National Committee and their rich backers are trying to do anything, legal, illegal, or whatever, to keep Bernie Sanders, their bro, from winning the nomination.

They have a lot of pictures on screen that are designed to raise the blood temperature of anyone who just can't wait to send their $25 donation to Bernie's online campaign. They've got Hillary Clinton laughing at the outset. You've got Biden in sunglasses looking like, if not a mobster, at least a cool rich dude. And then you've got when they talk over about the

establishment trying to keep Bernie out the words come up on screen establishment war on Bernie this is not subtle and it continues to not be subtle when we turn to the second part of the ad when they talk about Mike they talk about Mike Bloomberg six hundred million dollar campaign they then put Biden sitting on the stage and a picture and underneath that is the words billionaires hosting fundraiser for Biden

This is rich since the Club for Growth is funded by huge contributions from centimillionaires and billionaires themselves. But hey, everything's fair in love, war, and politics. What's a little bit of trash talk among friends? They finally end the ad with somebody holding up a sign that says Bernie or bust.

They say they should remember in the fall what they're trying to get Bernie Sanders supporters to do is remember that they don't want the Democrat. Now, that doesn't mean they want Donald Trump. Notice that Donald Trump is never mentioned in the ad. Donald Trump's picture never appeared. This is not an ad designed to convince you to vote for Trump. It's a design to get you to give up hope. This is an ad that is designed to tell Bernie Sanders voters that Trump

They should remember in the fall who did their hero in. And if what they should remember is to forget about voting, that's fine with the Club for Growth. Half a vote for Trump is almost as good as a vote

for Trump because the sort of person who will show up to make Joe Biden president is the sort of person who doesn't like Donald Trump and will do anything in their power to keep him out of office. This ad is a classic ad that's designed to drive up an opponent's negatives and do nothing necessarily to create a contrast. It's meant to persuade the Bernie voter that nothing matters more to them

than keeping the Democratic establishment out of office. This dovetails with the president's tweets that for weeks have been talking about the Democrats rigging it again against Bernie. There's a clear, not coordinated because that may or may not be legal, but clear uncoordinated, but clearly dovetailing campaign to try and convince Bernie Sanders supporters to abandon hope

when they think about the general election. We don't know if it's going to work, but what we do know is that it is a campaign that is telling people something they already are inclined to believe. Bernie Sanders got annihilated in the Michigan primary, but among the 14% of Democratic voters who told the exit poll that they may not vote for the Democratic nominee in November, over 50% of those people said they were backing Bernie.

The Bernie backer is somebody who's not necessarily a partisan Democrat, not necessarily in line with the corporate Democratic agenda. And the Club for Growth, the ultimate tool of conservative, small government, wealthy people, is trying to tell them that that sentiment is just fine with them.

Expect this ad to get a lot of airplay in swing states as they try and drive down the Bernie vote and drive up the chances that Donald Trump is going to win re-election. This is an excellent example of Machiavellian politics at its best. And that's why Remember is this week's ad of the week.

We've got a bonus edition of State of Play this week because, once again, we've got multiple important states voting on Super Tuesday, Mark 3.0. Joining me is another Mark, Mark Caputo, senior writer at Politico, and he's on to talk about Florida because he's a Florida-based writer. Mark, welcome to the horse race. Well, thanks for having me.

Well, we just went through Super Tuesday Mark 2.0, which was a blowout for Biden generally. That included a 50-something point win in Mississippi, a 30-something point win in Missouri. And all the polls show that Biden will, if anything, do even better in Florida against Sanders.

Is that what you're seeing or are the polls over optimistic? And why would Biden be doing better in Florida than he might have been doing in places like Missouri or Michigan? Well, the only reason the polls might be optimistic, reasonably speaking, is that about 400,000 absentee ballots, vote by mail ballots have been cast before Biden.

Biden really started to hit his stride with the big Super Tuesday on March 10th. And so prior to that, and certainly prior to February 29th in South Carolina, when the Biden surge really sparked, Biden was just doing so horribly. I mean, his campaign was basically in hospice. So the folks who decided to vote ahead of time

probably were more likely to vote for Bloomberg and maybe some of them for Sanders. It was just a much bigger field, right? Yeah. So Florida is really a Biden kind of state. And it's not only a Biden state, it's an anti-Sanders sort of state. And here's why. So I'm just going to talk about the Democratic primary election. Probably about 26, 27, 28 percent of the Democratic primary electorate

Is probably going to be African-American. That's Biden's base. You know, black voters came out so strong for Biden, Mississippi, that Bernie Sanders didn't even make threshold of 15 percent to get delegates. So that's a big thing. Right. So there's a there's a big group of influential voters, African-Americans who are wildly pro-Biden.

Then the second thing is age. Biden's base is with voters 50 years and older. Well, guess what? Two thirds of Florida's Democratic primary is 50 or older. And then about 60 percent of Florida Democratic voters consider themselves moderate or even conservative. That's also in Biden's wheelhouse. So now is there anything else? Well, yeah, there's Hispanics. Hispanic voters are probably going to be about 11 percent of the Democratic primary in Florida.

And there's some polls already that show they favor Biden outside of the margin compared to Bernie Sanders. Sanders did himself kind of no favors here. He describes himself as a democratic socialist. There are a number of communities in Florida, especially South Florida, where the word socialist is a four letter word. And then he had his comments in late February to 60 Minutes where he just they

failed to roundly condemn without equivocation and without qualification Fidel Castro's Cuba revolution. Put those things together and it's looking bad for Bernie among Hispanics and he was doing well among Latino voters in progressive states like Nevada and California. Add that stuff together the latest poll from the University of North Florida

has Biden beating Bernie by 66 to 22 percent. Yes, he's tripling him in Florida. So I think that might be accurate. Again, the only reason you might not see or the major reason you might not see that big of a margin, that big of a spread on Election Day come Tuesday, is that the some of the electorate 400000 ballots or so had been mailed in long before any of this really became a problem or an issue.

So I'll basically be looking for Bernie to maybe break even in Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida. And otherwise, this puppy is going to be put to bed as soon as the mail ballots drop. Yeah, well, the mail ballots usually one of getting tabulated first. So those are going to be the first ballots you're going to see in the totals of the counties. And, you know, we do spread across two time zones in Florida. So wait till 8 p.m. before a call is made. But a call will be.

almost certainly be made early by the networks, by the Associated Press, because the exit polling is going to show a really rough night for Bernie in Florida. And incidentally, when you look at Super Tuesday, when you look at Mini Tuesday, you look at the voters in all of those states,

They look a lot like the voters not only in Florida, but also the voters in Illinois, also the voters in Ohio, also the voters in Arizona. So polling in all of those states show that Bernie's going to have a very rough night on March 17th. And we don't really know how rough a night it's going to be, but the smart money is that he's going to get blown out in all four right now.

The only state that's got a significant voter block that has tended to favor Bernie is Arizona, where Hispanics are probably going to be a quarter or so of the Democratic electorate. And unlike in Florida, where Hispanics tend to be from Puerto Rico, Cuba, or South America, they're from Mexico. And Bernie has done very well with Mexican Hispanics. But you can't win a statewide victory when your base is a quarter of the vote.

Yeah. However, you know, polling in Arizona showed Bernie with a seven point lead, which was actually within the margin of error among Latino voters and in Arizona. So the profile of voter in Arizona on the whole in the Democratic primary is more moderate. Like Florida, Arizona has a closed primary and there.

There are a number of Mexican-Americans there who are not as enthused with kind of the progressivism of Bernie Sanders. So it wouldn't surprise me if Biden comes a lot closer. In fact, a number of people I spoke to, Democrats in Arizona, said that.

especially in the later days of the campaign or in recent days, that Biden is probably beating Bernie, even among Latinos in Arizona. Well, if that's the case, then we're probably looking at a 15 to 20 point Biden win in Arizona and probably 20 or points more in the Midwestern states and moving up to the crown jewel of Biden mania, which will be Florida. That this could very well be the grand, you know, four races, four wins. That's a grand slam.

That's a grand sign. Now, and I say this as a reporter, unfortunately, Democrats don't do what Republicans do with winner take all. So it's a lot harder for us to say, oh, all of these delegates are going to go over. But just so you know, in the four states that are going to be voting March 17th on Tuesday,

There's 577 total delegates available. Of that 577, 219 come from Florida alone. Only New York, which is left on the map, has a higher delegate load than Florida.

Well, it certainly looks that to me, like if the polls are correct and the momentum is correct and the inside comments are correct, is that we are looking at a real knockout blow. And the only question is whether or not Bernie Sanders is too stunned by the blow to realize that he should go down for the count. You know, that's a good question. I think Bernie Sanders has been maligned by a number of people in the Democratic Party as being someone who will lose an election in order to win an argument.

That having been said, yes, he is an ideologue. He is a true believer. But at the same time, I do believe that, and this is based on reporting and observation, Bernie Sanders does have a genuine affection for Joe Biden and vice versa. Yes, they're competitors. Don't get me wrong. And he has a genuine antipathy for Donald Trump.

At a certain point, Bernie Sanders, who's a pretty rational guy, might not believe in the stuff he believes in, but he's a rational guy, is going to pull the plug because he realizes he's going to be hurting the chances for Democrats to unseat Trump if he continues with his election. It's going to be a different dynamic than what you saw in 2016. Well, there are a lot of Democrats who are saying to themselves from your lips to God's ears, Mark.

Well, we'll see, right? But the target date for a Bernie withdrawal, especially if there is a clean sweep in the March 17th states, will be between March 17th and April 7th. What's April 7th? That's when Wisconsin votes. That would be kind of the last gut check. Now, that having been said, there are some theories out there that Bernie could even withdraw a little sooner. Maybe he'll make his points or say that his points –

were sufficiently addressed at the March 15th, the Sunday debate. I think that's unlikely and that's happy talk. So really watch between that 17th and that April 7th period. Yeah, my thought has been a while is that if Bernie's going to tough it out,

He's going to go through April 7th because Wisconsin, even though he's behind in the polls, Wisconsin's tended to be a progressive leaning state. You've got the University of Wisconsin. You've got the liberals in Madison. It allows him to have a chance at going out with a win.

And then there's a three week hiatus between that and all the rest of states. If he loses, he's got three weeks to basically pack it in and say, we gave it all we could. And now we've got to give turn the month of April over to the nominee, Joe Biden. But he could get out after sooner than later. And certainly I think the Democratic establishment would like it to be yesterday. Yeah. Well, the one thing the Democratic establishment should not do is try to get the guy out of the race because that'll be like a Chinese finger prison. The harder they try to tug him out, the more he's going to remain put.

Well, let's turn to the general election, that Florida has become a very closely fought state. It was not the closest state last time. The Midwestern states and New Hampshire beat it, but it was still painfully close victory for Trump. The Democrats don't need to win Florida to win, but Trump needs to win Florida to win. Tell me how it looks to you, Trump versus Biden in the Sunshine State as we speak.

Yeah, even though I just told you that Bernie Sanders is probably going to get blown out in Florida, I usually have a policy of not telling you what I think a Florida election is going to be even after Election Day because sometimes we're in recount. This is a state where you flip a coin and it's going to wind up on its edge. So I really don't know. Some of the polling from smart pollsters have Trump up.

within the margin of error, like a point. Yeah. Right. And if you're within the margin of error, that's a tie. Yeah. So I could see it kind of leaning Trump. I do think that Joe Biden is a better candidate for a state like Florida for Democrats. Joe Biden does have a weakness that a lot of establishment Democrats have. And that's with

with Latino voters, with Hispanic voters. I don't see the amount of investment from his campaign that's needed here. Now, that's not necessarily incompetence or negligence on the part of Biden's campaign. He just didn't have any money, and they weren't moving into states where they were able to make those sorts of investments. And Donald Trump's campaign has.

They're actually trying to grow the electorate, grow the amount of support he gets among Hispanics and African-Americans. Now, usually that's among men that they're targeting, but nevertheless, they are making a concerted effort to do that. And there is certainly a sizable portion of Florida's older white population which just loves Donald Trump. Like Collier County is a great example. That's in the southwest of Florida. That is where Naples is.

Collier County had almost a 90% turnout rate, 9-0% turnout rate in 2016 and went hard for Trump. Like when nine out of 10 voters shows up to cast ballots, you got, if you're on the Republican side, a positive intensity issue. And I don't see a lot of that intensity dropping off. That having been said, Florida's like a bunch of states in one and we have a real big,

How do I say this right? Florida has a big suburban USA feel, right? Like, especially if you're in the Tampa Bay region, Orlando area, parts of South or Southwest Florida, you could be in suburban anywhere. And those suburban anywhere places in 2018, we saw drift away from Trump. And we're seeing in the primaries, at least those folks drift toward Biden. So that might be an advantage on Biden's end. As you can see, the more I talk about this stuff, the more I talk myself back into a tie.

Yeah. And that's where Florida was the closest state in the union in 2012. It was one of the five closest states in the union in 2016. And it obviously was the essential state in 2000 where...

Somebody won it by less than a couple thousand votes. George Bush, George Bush officially. But Al Gore, probably it's 537 votes. Yeah. Just so you understand, 537 votes decided over 37 days of recounting. And incidentally, in 2020, the.

The spread here was 1.19 percentage points, 1.2 percentage points between Trump and Hillary. And that victory, by the way, was about 114,000 votes, the margin in Trump's favor. That was fueled thanks to strong Election Day turnout. Remember I told you that on Election Day, the first things that get counted and tallied are the absentee ballots and the early votes? When those were initially tallied, Hillary Clinton was up by an order of like 200,000 or so votes.

And that means that Trump's turnout was so strong on Election Day by double digits that he was able to kind of turn the tide and come out of roughly 114,000 votes up. Pretty astonishing.

Well, it's going to be a massive battle. One thing I have to ask you about in the era of coronavirus, which is the age of the population, that Florida is a state known for its retiree-heavy population. We know that older voters or older people are more at risk of fatality if they catch this.

Is there any sense in Florida right now that this is a disaster waiting to happen that will uniquely impact the retirement communities upon which Florida's vitality depends? I'm not getting that sense, but the sense of concern is first being felt in our economic sector.

We're a tourism state, and tourism is going to start to really significantly decline. Schools are going to be shutting down soon. University of Miami just announced, hey, we're in spring break. You know what, guys? Take another week of spring break, and when you come back, don't come back. It's going to be distance learning. So that concern is spreading out.

From an election standpoint, one of the things that Republicans have been very good at is cornering the absentee ballot market, so to speak. Their voters are much more attuned, accustomed and successful at casting vote by mail ballots than Democrats. And a lot of those voters are older voters. So I can see a scenario. I'm not saying it will exist, and I probably shouldn't even say it because I'm just guessing at the future, that if we're still in this dynamic in November or in October when the

voting actually starts, Republicans might have an edge because they have an edge in voting by mail. They're accustomed to doing it and they do it all the time.

Because this way their voters aren't going to have to stand in lines, aren't going to have to go to polling places. They can just do it from the comfort of their own home. Now, Democrats can do it too, again, but the Democratic Party has just not been as successful in getting its voters to, A, vote absentee ballots in the proportions that Republicans do, and then, B, vote them properly. There are certain signature requirements and the like which sometimes don't get fulfilled and the ballots wind up getting rejected.

Well, certainly something to keep an eye on. Mark, I will love to have you back on the horse race. Florida is going to remain a battleground state. And next time you're on, I would love to go over the different regions of Florida and explain to our listeners why they're so different and why that matters if you're trying to understand the second language.

third largest state in the country. Yeah. No, I was thinking that they're ahead of New York now, and I keep thinking, no, no, actually, Texas passed New York quite a ways ago. In fact, most of New York seems to have moved to South Florida in many years. Well, Mark, thank you for joining us on The Horse Race. Oh, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. ... ...

That's all we have time for today. Next week on The Horse Race, I'll be talking with Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Case for Trump, Greg Blustein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report. I'm Henry Olson, and I'll see you in the winner's circle. The Horse Race