Margin of Effort (with Ron Brownstein)
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Hey, pull up a chair. It's Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Let's remember, you've got 50,000 Chinese nationals in this country in the last couple of years. You've got people on the terrorist watch list, 350 in the last couple of years. You've got

like you said, 13,000 murderers and 15,000 rapists. What are you expecting? Joe Biden said he doesn't think it's going to be a peaceful election day. Well, he doesn't have any idea what's happening in Roe v. Wade as he spends most of his day sleeping.

I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country, by the way, totally destroying our country. The towns, the villages, they're being inundated. But I don't think they're the problem in terms of election day. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics.

And I think they're the and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by national guard or if really necessary by the military. Here we go, Murphy. Three weeks, a square mustache. I want to send him a photo, give him a role model. Three, three weeks, a little uplift from the Republican nominee. Three weeks out. It is a.

It is close and soon. And so we need a little extra wisdom. So we called in the professor himself, Ron Brownstein. One and only. Yeah, Ron, I'm clutching my pearls so tightly I can't breathe. Rescue me. Yeah, well, I don't know if I can, but good to be with you guys. Yeah, well, it's good of you to come the day after the Dodgers got beaten soundly in Los Angeles by the Mets. You must be

still reeling from that well although i did grow up in queen so it's you know i wasn't met fan as a kid so i was a mets fan as a kid too but i gave him up when they traded tom seaver to cincinnati in 1977 the dodgers are relieved because they didn't wind up having to face in the end the uh the magnificent detroit tigers we i was rooting by the way for the tigers and the uh

the tigers and the Phillies to advance because I figure people would be in a better mood if they, well, also as, as a political reporter, you get to see more of the ads, right? I mean, that's the thing on the, on the, on the, when the tigers and Phillies were in, you got to see the ads. Yeah. The apex media bot. That is true. That is true. So guys, where do you think this race is at? Just a level set before we get into the guts of it.

Well, it's margin, so we don't know. But if you put a gun to my head in the election tomorrow, I think I know. Get in line. I think I think Donald Trump would win tomorrow. Yeah. Well, I guess I had to guess. Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, nationally, she's still ahead.

The battleground states, I think they've seen pretty uniform movement toward Trump in the last two weeks. He certainly won the first half of October. His message has been crisper. His closing argument, surprisingly, she's a prosecutor. I think maybe we're getting to see the turn on a closing argument, but his closing argument has been

more crisp if not necessarily tethered to uh you know actual facts on the ground but essentially is reality essentially is immigrants are coming to kill you and she will let them um and her messaging about not only that after they kill you they get to get a free sex exactly they get they get a sex change operation if they want to pay for

The only reason the only hesitation I have in saying that he would win today is the the disparity in the ground game in the in the states that matter, particularly Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It's not clear to me that.

Trump can turn out particularly all of the younger non-white men who say they are interested in voting for him so she's got work to do I think every democrat agrees with that but uh and I think he's landed a punch I don't like using sports analogies because the stakes are so high but I think he's landed a punch but I don't think it's a knockout punch yet yeah you know um

The truth is we don't know because the margins are so small here. You look at momentum and there's no doubt that to the extent that anybody's had some, it has been him. And you do wonder...

I mean, the big question is he doesn't have a big turnout operation. He's sort of he's leased that out to to con con people like the Turning Point USA folks and so on. I guess Elon is in Pennsylvania trying to turn people away.

out, but he doesn't have a kind of coherent turnout operation. But I kind of think that this, I mean, he keeps turning the dial, as you heard at the top, he keeps turning the dial into the red as far as he can. I think that's his idea of a turnout operation.

Well, yeah, I mean, he's the macro forces candidate. A lot of what is benefiting him has nothing to do with him. It's a simple fire the incumbents, wrong track election. And she's kind of the half incumbent. You know, she's not Biden, but she was there and they've done some distancing and made I think they can do more.

So that massive... He's like a metal filing being pulled by a huge magnet. If it were not him, as flawed and unpopular as he is, a normal Repub candidate, I think, would be cruising pretty far ahead. Well, you know, because you are... I mean, look...

On the one hand, you have Democrats who are like throwing up their hands. How is it possible that this guy with everything that he's dragging along with him and his obvious, you know, signals of decline and the increasing radicalization of what he's saying? How is he in the game and maybe even a step ahead? And then on the other side, you know, you could say, well, 65 percent of people without a college degree. Yes.

you know, with across racial lines, 65% of people without a college degree think the Biden presidency hasn't worked very well for them, mostly because almost entirely because of prices. So how is she in the game? And, you know, well, let me just, can I interrupt you on something here? Yeah. I, you know, no one, no incumbent party, not just incumbent president, but so far as I can tell, and you are the repository of a lot of data, Brownstein, but I can't think of another,

when an incumbent party has won with anything remotely like these wrong track numbers. But I think Obama was at 39 in 2012. But, you know, the right track number is in the 20s.

So it's it really is a I think you're absolutely right, Murphy. This is a reflection of Trump's weakness, right?

Yeah, he should be. Generically, he's got everything working for him, and he's such an anchor. On the other hand, on all the little stuff that together makes a fairly big thing, she's got the advantage. More money, less corrupt, not corrupt, and also mostly sane campaign staff. I mean, the Dobbs decision has a lot of power. So she's kind of a confederation of forces while he's one big force.

Well, but he's, he's, he's too, I think I look at him as kind of almost like a layer cake in that it's two forces. I'm sure he eats them, but yeah. Yeah. He does eat them. I mean, like there is a core. Devil's food cake, but go ahead. There is, there is a core that was, that really does respond to this, you know, this kind of turn back the clock message.

uh the authoritarian message the immigrants are coming to kill you and eat your pets message um but as murphy is saying that's not quite enough the next little increment are just are the are just the wrong track voters who are just basically saying it isn't working for me let's give the other guy a chance and of course in this case he's got the immediate comparison of this conviction that life was more affordable when he was president in people's very fresh living memory um

You know, the canary in the coal mine to me all along, really, when Biden was, I think I wrote about this first last and the first in December of 23 is the improvement in his retrospective job approval. Right. And the share of people saying they approve of Trump's performance as president in polling is now often higher than it was at any point in his presidency. And what does that tell you? It tells you that they're judging him now mostly by what they don't like about Biden.

which is inflation. Right, right. He's not Biden. It's not a two-way race. It's a one-and-a-half-way race. He's just changed economically. What's missing in the dialogue in the last few weeks, I mean, the fact is that when Trump was president and people were living through this economy that they now say was better,

his approval rating never reached 50%, right? I mean, he was the only president ever to never reach 50%. And it didn't because Trump being president, there was a lot more that went along with it than just lower prices for eggs. And that everything else, I think, was really put back in people's face by his performance at the debate.

But it has faded since the debate. And up until Monday night, Harris had basically really sublimated that part of the messaging, focusing on reassurance about herself rather than the risk that Trump

uh, presents. Um, and I think you saw, I, I believe Monday night in here, as well as the ad they released was a beginning of a recalibration on that. I mean, it's obviously important for her to, to improve as she has on cares about people like you and the economy, but she, I don't think she can win on that playing field in the end.

More people think they were better off under Trump than under Biden. So that ultimately she has to convince, you know, a meaningful number of people who think Trump is better for their bottom line to vote against them anyway. And Democrats did that. She's got to win the argument. Not that, you know, you were better off four years ago, but you're going to be a lot better off two years from now with me, not him. Well, I mean, you know what? I mean, let's let's let can I just can I just drill down a little bit before you move forward on this?

There are two questions that that you just raised, Ron, and that you guys both just raised that I think are sort of central here. Can Trump can Trump get to where he needs to go by simply amping up his rhetoric to the point where he gets these kind of disengaged voters out?

off the couch and vote for him? And is there any cost to him doing it? Because he's in some ways modeling the behavior that worry people about a Trump presidency. On the other hand, can she focus on Trump's liabilities and drop, completely drop in her advertising and her main messaging that gets covered?

any sort of economic message, because that economic message is pretty central to people's concerns about her.

Well, I answer that with a little different frame. I don't think Trump has a turnout throttle based on his rhetoric. I think what he is is what he is. It's indelible. He gets what he gets. He's not her. I do the car dealer poll. Talk to somebody in retail automotive. You know, people come in, they bought a car five years ago. They say they're making a $311 payment and they want a new car. And I tell them, great, it'll be about $605. And they go berserk.

you know, inflation, just the pocketbook impact. So I don't know if Trump has that throttle. I think the only loose veritable in this campaign is her. And I agree. It's a tricky call for her to get off the economy stuff, to get into telling people what they already think about Trump and make her vote happier with kind of the aggression of it. And, you know, maybe that does remind people of what they don't like about Trump. But I think her bigger problem is what I call the music of the campaign.

I don't see her out there, the happy warrior, working all day, the energy, feeling like change. She's feeling very politician to me, which is not her rocket fuel. And this transactional stuff, oh, we got in trouble with black men. All right, I love black men. What can I do? I've been holding off on that. That is a problem. They're not telling a story here. Yeah. Let's take this in stages because I want to get into that. We're...

You know, his handle, if Brownstein were in the White House, his Secret Service thing would be Mr. Demography. So we'll get into this in a second. But...

You know, we've talked, Murphy, throughout this campaign about the two Trump campaigns. The one his campaign is running and the one he's running. One very disciplined, one rational, and the other irrational and undisciplined. And so you heard what he's doing out there at the top of the show. This is the spot that anybody who's been watching sports will see. It's a version of a spot they've been seeing for centuries.

weeks here and you guys referred to it earlier. Let's see that Trump trans ad.

inmate in the prison system would have access. No, I don't want my taxpayer dollars going to that. Kamala supports transgender sex changes in jail with our money. Kamala even supports letting biological men compete against our girls in their sports. Kamala is for they, them. President Trump is for you. I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message. First of all, Murphy, that close that Kamala's for they, them, Trump,

Trump's for you. That sounded like a Murphy button on a spot. That was the first thing I thought of. But listen, this spot has been background music as they've done the economic thing, as they've done the immigrant thing. And I think it is more damaging to

than people recognize. Oh, I agree. You know, we've argued about this a little, but the old-fashioned liberal, liberal, liberal stuff, if you have it, particularly if you have tape, works. I mean, they're killing her in Michigan with Green New Deal right now. They're running spots on that.

You know, it that's why she was never the strongest candidate, you know, nominated by conference call. But maybe that was unavoidable and she was better than Biden. So everybody took it. But now on the second look, you do pay a price for taking some of these positions that are easily pounded. And I think the most interesting thing is obviously they're they're trying to target African-Americans, trying to peel down a key Democratic base group here and

And that is a more socially conservative section of the Democratic Party. When you align your internal party politics to identity, stuff that you thought might have worked in coming up in California Democratic politics or in 2019 trying to be the progressive candidate for president, it can come back. And here we are.

Yeah. Brownstein, Brownstein, it's not. Yes, it clearly, you know, it's Charlemagne, the God who she's doing a town hall with tonight. I guess he announced on his show this morning he wasn't going to ask her about this because he didn't want to be used by the Trump campaign. But she's doing Fox tomorrow night. She has to address it. She's going to she's going to have to answer that.

this question. But it's not just this isn't just a dividing line between her and segments of the black community. This is a dividing line between her and working class whites and Hispanics as well. Yeah. Look, I mean, shortly before the first debate, even before the bad Trump performance in that first debate, one Republican said to me,

uh that if we win this race we are not going to win it through the interactions between trump and harris whether at the debate or just day-to-day him driving the news cycle on the campaign trail if we do win it's going to be by doing to her what we've done to democratic candidates from time immemorial crazy liberal right uh weak on crime weak on the border you know essentially caucus

Right. And essentially through an advertising campaign that is just essentially the Terminator, you know, it just kind of runs by itself. He can do whatever he wants over here. We're going to be on in Milwaukee and, you know, Madison and Green Bay doing what we have done forever. And they are doing that. And, you know, it is taking a bite out of her. But there is still a lot of hesitation in the electorate, as we were talking about, about putting Trump back in the White House for the past for the next decade.

And I do think that where Harris has lost the thread the most is of reminding people of everything else that comes with him besides cheaper eggs. And I think that, like, if you're talking about black men, for example, first of all, black men are only about three to five percent of the electorate in the states that matter the most, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And I think this, as you were saying, is going to be fought out much more among black

College white men and non-college white women are really the two big groups that are movable there. But certainly you can't, you know, these states are so tight, you can't give up anything. But

Trump's potential, Harris has been so focused on reassurance that I think she has downplayed risk. And a good example, one example is she went on Univision, again, did not address Trump's plan to deport 11 million people, right? I mean, asked by a woman whose mother never achieved legal status. She would not go there. I mean, people didn't like family separation when Trump did it with four or five thousand kids. There are

four million U.S. citizen kids with undocumented parents, at least one undocumented parent. I mean, this could potentially be family separation on industrial scale. They're not going there. They're stressing, I am tough enough to keep you safe. You know, as we used to say about Giuliani in 9-11, when she does a sentence about immigration, it's noun, verb, Langford.

Right. Talking about James Langford. But the same thing with black men. I mean, it'll be interesting to see if tonight in this town hall, you know, Trump is counting on improving among black men. He is also proposing that every police department in the country be required to institute stop and frisk as a condition of continuing to receive federal law enforcement aid while also passing federal legislation to make it harder to sue police for misconduct. Like,

Like, who is going to be stopped and frisked? Like, from what we know when New York did it, the same younger black men that he's counting on. And yet Democrats have not really called him out on that. So the interesting thing about that, in their communications to younger black men, their attacks on her are not about...

how lax she's been at a process as a prosecutor, but how tough, tough, right? So she's, she's, she's put a lot of young black men away as a prosecutor. They're gear shifting now though. I mean, I agree. It's a problem. And I, I, I have yet to see a democratic campaign that can't get their African American vote basically lined up by election day. Maybe she's going to be the first. And there is a gender aspect to this. There is, you know, the Democrats are making double identity history here. Um,

great, good for the country. My daughter will enjoy it. I'll enjoy it on her behalf. As a Trump hater, I want her to win, but they're stretching some rubber bands here. And the only way to win is for her to be excellent.

And the only way to be excellent is to be able to answer, why are you different than Biden? Which I think would be like three by five card one in any, any campaign situation and jump into the spotlight. She's swung on that last week, the victory stuff, you know, she's got to drive the music of earning it, being out there, not this transactional stuff. I'll do Charlemagne because black men hate me. It's all too transparent and calculating the

Well, I mean, the I mean, part of that was, I thought, really odd to release. You know, there's all this brooding about her standing with black young black men. So she releases her plan for young black men three weeks before an election. I mean, the plans are you got to think that, you know, these these individual plans for individual groups are just kind of, you know, disappear, I think.

I think there would be no question that the Trump negatives for the groups are the more powerful argument for her than any new programmatic positive that she can put. I mean, the fact that Trump wants to require every police department in the country to institute stop and frisk or lose their federal law enforcement dollars would seem to be of relevance to younger black men in cities that could be affected by it. He's going to put the Klan in charge of the Justice Department. Go for his throat.

That's why she ought to be doing two impromptus a day with a great attack line in each. That's very natural and everything. You have to be a dumb ass to vote for him. If your skin is dark, cause you're going to be wearing handcuffs in the back of a cruiser, whether you're guilty or not swing the ax. The, but the eerie, the eerie event Monday night was, you know, different in that way in that they played the clips of Trump. You know, I wrote a piece. We got a little clip for, we let, we got a clip. Let's play a clip from her on Monday night. Look,

Look, anybody who says they would terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States. Never again. Never again. Never again.

So that's a little taste of it. She did play the clip of Trump. I think it was the it was it was a mashup of a bunch of crazy stuff that he said. I wrote my first piece last year, December of 23, about all the different ways he has talked about sending federal force, National Guard or other federal law enforcement into blue jurisdictions for different purposes over the objections of mayors.

And again, you know, with Maria Bartiromo, the enemy within, we're going to go after them with the National Guard and the military. I mean, this Trump may muse a lot, but it is a mistake to just assume that none of this means anything, that he is not, you know, he is not planning anything.

to do the things that he says he is, he wants to do, including sending the National Guard to round up undocumented migrants. And I think what, you know, if you look at, again, if you look at these kind of swing states, I,

I historically, David, you know, I mean, we have an election that's increasingly shaped this time, less by race and age, more by gender and education. So what does that leave you? That leaves you with conflicted non-college white women and conflicted college white men in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, who are big shares of the electorate, especially the women who think that Trump is probably better for their bottom line. They're struggling with inflation. Grocery costs have really hit them high, but who remain...

meaningful numbers of them remain reluctant to put him back in power given everything else that goes with him as president, all the chaos, all the division, all the vitriol, all the daily kind of unpredictability. And

As Mike was saying, as I'm saying, you know, when Harris did her media tour, you know, the big Howard Stern, the view, everything else, she was really focused on reassurance. Like I have lived your life. I get your life. I can make your life better. There was no coherent, consistent Trump message. And ultimately when you've got as high a wrong track as you do,

I, you know, I think that she has to she has to put him back in the spotlight in the final weeks. You know, we saw in 2022 in the 2022 midterm, there was an unprecedented number of voters dissatisfied with the economy who still voted against the Trump like candidates because they viewed them as unacceptable on other grounds. And the idea that Trump is a threat to your rights, your values, democracy and to the stability of your lives and community.

I think has to be kind of in the center if she is going to move those last few points apart from whatever advantage she might have on the turnout machine. I agree with that. But fundamentally, they got to make they got to take a risk here. They got to throw her out here and hope she can perform at the level that will put this race away, because if she can't, I believe she's going to lose. Right now, she speaks the language of wealthy college educated suburbanites. That's her tone. She looks like she's running a PBS pledge drive.

I don't see her trying to earn this. I don't see her hustling. I'm reading about a light campaign schedule. I'm hearing from Democratic governors, we're going to lose this state. I can't get her in here. Trump's here every three days, Trump or Vance. Well, Trump isn't exactly burning up the hustings. I think his campaign would be happy if he never showed up in those states. The campaign is constantly trying to take fuel or ground his plane. That's good for everybody.

But there's got to be a happy warrior shift where they quit protecting her and let her either win or lose this thing. There's no calculation that changes it, I think. She's got to go earn it. Okay, let's take a break right here for a word from our sponsor. We'll be right back.

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messaging and the other is messenger. And you guys are talking about separate things here. They're related, but separate. Let's listen to the ad that because obviously Brownstein's view is prevailing because they've made a pretty hard shift in their tone in media. And let's listen to one of the spots that they've run in recent days.

In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House. Now those people have a warning for America. Trump is not fit to be president again. Here's his vice president. Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. I cannot in good conscience endorse...

Donald Trump this year. His defense secretary. Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's secrets ever again? No. I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation's security at risk. His national security advisor. Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump. And the nation's former highest-ranking military officer. We don't take an oath to a king or a queen.

We're a tyrant. We're a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. Take it from the people who knew him best. Donald Trump is too big a risk for America. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Guys, it's fine, but it doesn't move the needle she needs to move. I don't believe. I think Trump is Trump. Yeah, that's my question. That is exactly my question. My question is how much of this is priced into the stock of

With Trump, I mean, my concern, I think you have to

Talk about how his character deficiencies and his craziness and his vengeance, how that actually translates into how it affects you. Obviously, on the on the abortion issue, there's an easy place to to go. You know, I also think there's a potential lane. I know, Murphy, this offends you as a as a old line Republican, but.

You know, the fact is he talks like a populist and he governs like a royalist. That's a whole nother attack. You've been working on that one. That...

you know, I think is a place that they can go, but I don't think, you know, I wonder whether that kind of spot appeals to people who they've already got. Yeah, no, it is. It's to quit the anger. You know, the complaints are getting the finance world. They're under internal turbulence now saying she's not attacking Trump enough. Uh, so yeah, and it won't hurt. I just don't think it moves the key needle. Well, you know, I do think if you're, if you're focused on, uh,

particularly, you know, kind of blue collar voters, blue collar women in particular, who feel that life has gotten out of control under Biden, that, you know, they can't meet their grocery bills. They see the images of the border. They feel like crime is rising, even though it's falling. This is ultimately the way in which you close that circuit, I think.

that you're talking about, David, is by essentially saying Trump as president is just an agent of chaos who will bring chaos to the country and maybe chaos to your community. Um, that it just too, it just too much, um, too much volatility and risk that goes with electing him as president. And I guess for me, I look at, like I said, the canary in the coal mine here is the increase in his retrospective approval rating that Wall Street Journal poll last week done by interestingly, the firms polling for Trump and, you know, Harris, uh,

He was at 50 percent or above in retrospective job approval in six of the seven swing states. OK, he wasn't there when he was actually president. And I think that is a marker of something going wrong for them in the messaging. And, you know, by the way, as you as we both all been saying, this is his retrospective job approval is going up, even as he is going further off the rails.

in his daily, you know, what he is presenting to the public every day, enemy within. He's modeling that behavior. Let me give you a contrarian view on that. Yeah. If you're swinging a hammer for a living in York, Pennsylvania, and you can't afford a new truck and everything's more expensive now, and you have fond memories of things were better under truck.

The fact that a guy who built his pop culture image on you're fired, made a bunch of guys in suits at the White House who work for him irritated because he's shaking things up. Does that move your vote? I don't think it does. Does it move your wife?

Murphy? I mean, that guy is not, that doesn't move your wife. I mean, that guy is gone. I mean, there's like, that's gone. Like my, my wife's already. No, no. His wife, his wife, Mrs. Mrs. Hammer swinger. Oh, well, I don't know. I, that's, that seems to be the real question. Let me just interrupt and say one thing.

Murphy's wife is already a mystery because she's Murphy's wife. Yeah. Okay. So let's just assert that. I was not referring to Murphy's wife. I was referring to Mr. Hammer Swinger's wife. Because look, the odds are... I think she's probably most worried about, from the focus groups I've done,

The people on welfare ripping off the system while I'm doing 10 hours a day behind the cashier at Walmart watching the food stamps go by. She's worried about the immigrants and crime. She's culturally conservative. Right. And that's been true. She's not so sure about Kamala Harris with the $200 nails from Bel Air, California. And that's been my concern. But every Democrat.

has lost college, excuse me, every Democrat has lost non-college white women since 1980, except for Bill Clinton in 1996. They don't have to win them, but they do run a little better among them in the former blue wall states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The difference between Hillary being stuck at 40% among them and losing those states by 80,000 combined votes and Biden getting just a little better into the low 40s among them and winning, also doing better among college white women,

I think that there, you know, the Trump negatives, the Trump chaos factor is not going to reach that hammer swinger you were just describing. He's gone. I mean, and he's going to vote for Trump at even bigger numbers than they voted for him in 2020 for some of the reasons you cite, plus just inflation. Life hasn't been great. But I do think.

that there is a pathway for Harris to do better with college white women around abortion than Biden did to at least do as well. She is maxing that out. They're pounding that every minute of every day. In fact, and do and just do a little better with if she can do as well, a little better with the non-college white women than Biden did.

which is not easy because of inflation, but is doable because of Trump's excesses. That's my point. Chaos or economy, which moves. I think that if you can link the two, he's going to bring you more economic pain. I am not Biden. I am different. New faces, new plan on your side.

to move that needle is a better route for her than they're squabbling. Somehow I, somehow I feel like that you need to connect chaos with pocket, uh, your, your, yes, with pocketbook where you, you know, you're, you're,

You're the last thing on his mind, really. I mean, I thought Obama was very effective in that speech on that. He doesn't basically he said he didn't give a shit about you. He cares about himself. And they've done that. They tried. Look, they try to do that. Look, they've tried. I mean, almost everything we are saying someone has done at some point.

And there are some underlying realities, which is that there's a big chunk of the country who wants, you know, as Adam, my colleague says, you know, the cruelty is the point. But on top of that, in the layer cake, there's another X percent that are just like, well, the party in power has failed. My life isn't better. So let's give the other guy a try. And so. Right. And so you have to you have to. The point is, in some form or fashion, you have to raise the risks.

raise the stakes of the other guy. So they need to understand what the cost proposition is for having the other guy. He's not an antidote to your problems. He brings a whole new set of problems that we're familiar with. That's what I think has been, personally, that's what I think has been missing. And the gauge of that is the rising job. Can I ask you some demographic questions here? I mean, the thing that's noteworthy to me in the polling is she's actually...

on balance when all in she's doing okay with white voters. Yes. And, and, you know, because what she's gaining among college whites, she's, you know, whatever she's lost among non-college, she's gaining among college whites and she's not doing that badly among non-college whites relative to how poorly candidates have generally done the last few elections. And,

The place where she seems not to be is this thing we were talking about earlier, not just younger black men, but also Hispanics. Hispanics, exactly. And so and that is the question is, is it as Murphy suggests, that all of these voters will come home?

or is this a reality? And to clarify for the record, I think a lot of the African Americans will come home. I'm not at all sure about Hispanics. Yeah. Uh,

Well, look, I mean, yes, that is the reality. I mean, you know, depending on which data source you use, she won somewhere. Sorry, excuse me. Biden won somewhere between 41 and 44 percent of white voters in 2020. She's usually right at 42 or 43. I mean, she's right in the middle there for exactly what you're describing. She is she has slipped a little among non-college whites, although not as much as you might expect for the

black woman from Bellaire in Murphy's framing. And she is gaining. She'll probably do a little better than Biden did among the college whites. Not shockingly, don't forget, Dobbs didn't happen until after the 2020 election. We always forget that. But there is clearly erosion among Hispanics and black voters. Now, how much erosion? You know, I mean, polls that have her at 56, the New York Times poll among among Latinos, some put her a little higher than

Biden was somewhere around 65 in the exit, 60-ish, 61, 62 in Catalyst and Pew. They didn't have him as high, so we don't know. I think, and that reflects also the decline in Florida and Texas. I mean, if you look at Nevada and Arizona, what you saw in 2022 was that Democrats did not recover the ground that Trump gained from 16 to 20, but they didn't lose any further ground.

And even in that New York Times polling last week, David, I was struck. You know, they did have her at that kind of somewhat scary number for her among Latinos nationwide. They still had her at 60 in Arizona, which in their separate poll, which is where Biden was in Arizona. I don't think she gets all the way back. I don't think it's possible. I think too many of these voters live at the margin economically. You know, there are people who are working hard and living paycheck to paycheck, and they feel like they've lost ground over the last four years.

I don't think she gets all the way back. Also culturally conservative. But do any of us doubt she's going to carry the popular vote? No. And by the way, that will be eight out of nine, which no party has ever done. Even the most dominant coalitions in American history, as I wrote, the Teddy Roosevelt era Republicans won seven out of nine. The FDR era Democrats going to LBJ from FDR in 32 to LBJ in 68. They won seven out of nine. Republicans did. McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft.

Right, right, right. But no one's ever done it. No one's ever done it. But it's not as powerful as it used to be because of the five times we've had different outcomes in the Electoral College and the popular vote in American history. We've had three of them in the last, what, 24 years? Yeah, well, two of them. There's been a move to concentration by region. I mean, it's polarization, man. Which makes the Electoral College now the key game, not the popular vote, which is why...

Popular vote polls are not really the best way to predict. No, absolutely right. I mean, neither of those coalitions, the TR Republicans or FDR Democrats ever won the popular vote and lost the electoral college has now happened twice. And this could be the third time after happening only three times in all of American history to 2000. It's now happened twice and we could have three. All right. We're going to take a minute to pay the bills and we'll be right back.

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By the way, here's something else. I just want a little factoid. It's entirely possible, right, that Trump loses the national popular vote and Republicans win all three chambers of government. That's what happened in 2016. That only happened once before 2000. The only other time that happened for

either party was an 18. Yeah, we ought to dive in for a second on this because I think there's almost no chance to Democrats sweep everything. There is a meaningful chance to Republicans do while losing the national popular internally. They're very giddy internally about the Senate races because some of these races that were seen more as Republican long shots like Wisconsin and Michigan are now tied. Uh, McCormick's down margin of error in Pennsylvania. So,

So and that that I think is the wrong track election manifesting itself. It's also it's also the gravity of the incumbent party and the state. Right. They mostly tell, you know, we it's become almost impossible for either side to win Senate races and states about the other way for president in the 2016 and 2020 elections combined the two last presidential years. Exactly one Senate candidate out of 69 races, including president.

They only won. Susan Collins, the only one who won a state that voted the other way for president. Now, you know, Gallego and Rosen seem to be on track to win whatever happens in the presidential. But you can't assume that Slotkin, Baldwin and Casey are safe if Biden loses their states. Now, if it's a photo finish, maybe they finish a little ahead of Biden. But it is that history that we're dealing with that, you know, split ticket voting is really eroding politics.

Only one candidate out of 69 want to stay at the vote of the other president. Here's the million-dollar question.

If Trump wins the electoral college narrowly, but she wins the popular vote by a couple of points, which I think could happen. What happens in the house? Yeah. I mean, I think that's a, that's the, I think 18, I guess it's 18 districts that Trump that Biden carried in which there are Republicans and seven or something of the opposite. I,

If I were to guess today, unless something changes, I still think Democrats would score a marginal victory in the House. That's my guess, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean, the thing that makes it so independent is that so many of the House races that Democrats have to win are in New York and California.

You know, which are not which are not for different reasons or, you know, not fundamentally presidential battlegrounds. So you could imagine a scenario where Democrats squeak by in the House, whatever happens at the presidential. I tend to think that, you know, the rising tide lifts all boats and the party that wins the White House is going to squeeze out the House. There's not. But the thing is, Ron, there's not going to be that much of a tide.

I mean, it's going to be sort of still waters, right? Someone's going to win by just a little bit. We'll see what happens. Like, you know, I mean, you guys know Mike Podhorzer, who is the political director of the NFL forever, you know, and using data from Catalyst, he has famously calculated over the last three elections, 91 million separate people, actual individuals have come out to vote against Trump or Trumpism and 83 million have come out to vote for Trump or

or Trumpism, that, you know, it reinforces the notion of this eight out of nine potential in the popular vote. The Democratic coalition on a national basis is slightly bigger. And when we were talking before about, although it doesn't avail them because of the Electoral College and the Senate and so forth, but when we were talking before about what is the point of raising the alarm, Bob Dole style, wake up America. Mike, did you write that phrase? I mean, part of the goal has to be

to activate these, you know, the part of that 91 million that doesn't feel like the Biden years were that great for them are not necessarily inclined to come out unless they see a clear and present danger from Trump. And there's no doubt that has been the motivation over this whole cycle. Yes. But again, I'm going to push back a little because I don't disagree with that. But to activate those votes is

We need the thinly defined Kamala Harris, who's been scuffed up by Trump advertising pretty badly, to close the deal. And only she can do that. So we got to give them a show here.

We've got to give them a heroic candidate. All the non-issue dimensions. Because if she's just spitting out the right talking points and bullet points, it'll help marginally. But she's got to have a heroic... She's got to make a little movie here where she goes out and earns it and the country connects to her. So that 8 out of 9...

can line up behind her with some faith things are going to get better, and she's up to it. She's not a manufactured candidate. They've never voted for her. BP doesn't count. You've made this point several times, and I agree with you. I think that at the end of the day, in presidential races—

execution is really important. The field's going to be really important because of the closeness of this race. But ultimately, ultimately how candidates perform down the stretch is really important. And she has to, you know, she, you say she, she speaks in the language of Bel Air, but the truth is,

She is saying the right words on sort of economic issues often, but she speaks like it's like she learned it from Berlitz. It's not it doesn't come naturally.

I mean, I would kill all the big rallies. They look staged and manufactured. They're a cliche now. Trump does that. I would be the queen of small groups, touch, feel, impromptus, popping up all over loose TV. They need a different visual vernacular for the campaign. They need to tell a different heroic story. She needs to look like she's out there scuffling and mixing up with people. I agree with that. I got two quick things, and then we got to do the mail.

One is it seems to me there are two people who could influence this election one way or the other. And one is Bibi Netanyahu. I think that if you if you look at that and I said this, I think last week, if you look at when her she made incremental upward progress for 10 days after the last debate.

And then stopped. And I think it was the day that Israel invaded or attacked Lebanon that that happened. And that became front of mind today.

And I know that it's not what people are talking about around their table, but it does implicate the whole commander in chief thing, strength and so on. And I think it hurt her. They're running an ad now or they have been with a couple of her national. And you heard the one we heard. There are other there's another that specifically national security people talking about what a risk he'd be back in that job as commander in chief.

But what happens if if Bibi, if he retaliates against Iran and that thing erupts? We've seen Hezbollah attack Iran.

again, in central Israel. This thing could be in the news. It could totally escalate. Yeah, and we're putting a lot of pressure on them not to escalate to the nuclear program in Iran, and they need our military assets to be successful there, so it's holding them in abeyance. But yeah, yeah, yeah. And by the way, in Michigan, you know, there's an aspect people miss. They think, oh, big Arab community. It's half Muslim, half Christian.

And so now that Lebanon's in play, it's a wider footprint of friends and relatives. We're talking about 1-2% of the vote, but it's a community that leans Democratic. And you have Iraqi Chaldeans there. It's more complicated than the one sentence you often read in the media. And as Lebanon...

It electrifies more families there. She and Biden are kind of trapped in no man's land. Biden continues to, the administration continues to arm Israel. And although a story came out just now in the Washington Post saying that Biden, the administration has warned Israel that if there isn't an improvement in humanitarian aid,

situation, they may stop sending armaments or some armaments. That's a dangerous game, though. Well, it is. It is. And, you know, the problem is

Bibi isn't listening to him. He gets no credit with the Arab communities for trying to foment some sort of peace agreement. And she's softer than him in her tone. So she doesn't have more problems. Jews give them no credit for providing material for...

for the Israelis. Although there are a lot of Jews and obviously there are a lot of American Jews who don't think much of Netanyahu in the way that he's prosecuting the war either. But, you know, I,

Whenever I think of Netanyahu in this election, I think of a line from The Lord of the Rings where at some point, I think it's Gandalf says, the ring, you always have to remember the ring wants to be found. And I always think Netanyahu wants Trump to win. I mean, it's not kind of, it's not, you know, it's not his highest goal. I mean, he's got other, you know, imperatives, but on balance, he is not looking to do anything.

the Biden administration or Harris any favors. So now they have, you know, all these stories out in the last 24 hours that they have pressured them, you know, not obviously not to bond the nuclear facilities or oil facilities, which would have been a way to create a gas, you know, crisis that would have, would have certainly affected the race. I, I,

Biden has been in no man's land and has looked utterly ineffectual when it comes to which is which is the lowest moments of president. Well, and she's caught in her own stuff, though, because they did. I thought a very shrewd convention speech where they got to Trump's right on foreign policy. And they haven't really done much more about that. They kind of just let it atrophy. They haven't tried to get to Biden's left, at least tonally.

on the Middle Eastern stuff because she's trying to, my favorite proverb, wash the bear without getting his fur wet. And so if it escalates, and remember, we have some troops there. We just sent a THAAD missile battery for 100 American soldiers, the air defense system. Does Trump the hammer prevail?

Perception wise against Kamala, the thoughtful nurturer. And I would be worried about that. I just said, yeah, I just think, I think that's one of the aspects that we have to watch. The other person who I think could affect her negatively is Biden himself. Because if he continues to say, you know, we're a team, she was part of everything I did. She's going to be a continuation of me that, you know, that is not helpful. And,

And she's got to stretch that rubber band, man. She blew it when I can't name anything different. If she loses, that'll be the signature moment. And it may be unfairly, but it'll be she she's got to it's politics. So, you know, you can apologize later, but she has changed. She's new, different. You know, she cannot have that anchor around her neck. It's killing her. OK, then let's take a break right here and we'll be right back.

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Hannah, when we have a big brain like Ron Brownstein, we get to talking and time goes by. Do we have time for any mail? Yeah, we have about 10 minutes. Okay. All right. Let's cue the orchestra. Listener mail.

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773-389-4471. I'll repeat it because who can remember that? 773-389-4471. Ron Brownstein, Diana has asked a really interesting question and you are just the man as a huge consumer of data to answer it.

Hi, guys. This is Diana calling from the Bay Area. I would like to understand more about internal polling. I guess it's also called private polling. How is it different from the polls released publicly? And are there any insights you guys can share about what those polls are showing at this point in the presidential race? Thanks so much. I never miss a show. Bye-bye.

well thanks diana run you know your your colleague uh old colleague david pluff did an interview the other day with your other old colleague dan pfeiffer yes uh in which he said that essentially all public polling is horse bull uh you know uh horse crap um uh you know look uh professional pollsters uh

You know, most of them are really good. They try really hard to get it right. But they are laboring under the same problems as public pollsters. I mean, they have to make assumptions about the electorate, who's going to turn out. Whenever we see internal polls released, I've always and you could tell me this. I mean, you're going to answer this. I always assume that there's like there's a version of internal poll that's like internal, you know, asterisk public, like the one you want to put out to the public.

as opposed to the one you kind of tell yourself. I do think that the Democratic pollsters that I talk to, that I trust, the Republican pollsters that I talk to, that I trust, believe almost uniformly there has been some movement in their internal polling toward Trump, toward Republicans in the first half of October. What they differ on is whether that has stopped with the race in the dead heat or whether it has left Trump slightly ahead, at least in the, you know, in the blue wall, former blue wall states.

Two quick things on this. One is there are good there are some good public polls and bad public polls. And the effect of this cascade of polls is that they all say slightly different things. They all sort of suggest that this is a close race or most of them.

but some, you know, or have her two points up in Pennsylvania, some two points down and people react to the changes. We cover each poll as if it's right. The margin of error rules, the narrative stone tablet.

Yeah, I mean, this is a tied race. I think that's how you should think about this. And whoever said this to me is absolutely right. This is this is not only a margin of error race, it's a margin of effort race. If you've got a poll that's essentially one point plus or one point plus the other way, that tells you that, you know, the polling probably can't tell you who is going to win. And it's it's.

is really execution and what the campaigns do in the final hours. And the margin, the races of these states seem to be, for the most part, within the margin of effort of either campaign. Well, and the other problem is people use polls as therapy animals to try to predict tomorrow so they feel better, when what polling really tells you is what people are learning about the campaigns and kind of where they're heading. They're not that perfectly predictive. So there's only one poll that counts, the Murphy poll. You're one point behind.

Wake up every day acting like that. You'll be better off. Also, I'll just quickly say on behalf of America's pollsters, it's never been harder to go out and interview. Absolutely. They have all the same challenges. It is incredibly hard. You have to call a thousand people to get one landline complete. Most of what we do is cell phones and text to internet now.

it's really, really hard to do well. That is one of the reasons private polls generally are better because they spend more money and they do multimodal. They do it off of lists that are refreshed daily by registration and so on. So, Mike Murphy, I've got a question for you from Bob. Hi, this is Bob Barisi, Chicagoan living in exile in Dallas.

I'd like to ask Murphy, what is going on with George Bush? Why can't he stand up and endorse Harris? So many Republicans are doing it. I just don't get it. Thank you.

Nice question. Thank you, Bob. I'm working on Romney. Call Rove on the Bush thing. That's his department. So, you know, former presidents historically and former President Bush is kind of old school, generally go off into the sunset and don't do too much dabbling in party politicians. Now, some of these applause hounds over in the Democratic Party shall go unnamed, can hardly wait to get on the campaign trail.

Bush has been a little different, but I have a feeling that I doubt he's voting for Donald Trump, and who knows what's happening. But again, I'm working on Mitt, who's a corporate nominee. He's a listener. He knows I'll be bugging him later today.

He's a good man. He doesn't think it'll have any impact. And I'm trying to make the argument, as many people are, that, oh, I, you know, I think it might be good for America. He's a patriot and I think he wants the right outcome. To his credit, he's been very clear saying it's that he can never support somebody of Trump's character as Pence.

Okay, for Axelrod, a question from Charlie. As of today, do you think this short campaign worked to Kamala's advantage?

or disadvantage? You know, I think the answer is both. She's had to speed date the American people, and that is very hard to do, to establish the depth of relationship. And this goes to your point, Murphy, about what she needs to do in the closing weeks, the depth of relationship to establish the kind of trust that people need to

vote for president. And in that sense, it's been a disadvantage. The advantage was she eluded a primary election in which there would have been a powerful temptation to be tugged to the left. She's much better positioned than she is. She's still paying the price for 2019 and

She never made it to 20 in which she got into a Democratic primary. So on the whole, I think she is better off. Yeah, but I don't think it is entirely a positive. Well, Charlie just texted me a tough follow up. That's the kind of listener journalist he is.

If it had been a longer process, would she be the nominee? I think it's a very, very good question. And I don't know. I mean, in some ways, this is related to your point, Murphy, is how she does in the final stages of this campaign. Yeah. You know, we'll see, because I said a long time ago that presidential elections were like MRIs for the soul. Whoever you are, people know by the end of them. Right.

Right. And her scan is not entirely done. Yeah. If I were her, I'd run to the MRI and be excellent. That's the way to win. And maybe she can't do it. We're going to find out.

Ron Brownstein. Yes. I was going to say, I think on balance, it has been an advantage for her for the reason you said that you spend months being tugged to the left slightly and then being ganged by Fox. I think she'd be in a much weaker position. And, you know, I always felt like there was a there would be a demand side for alternatives to Harris. I'm not sure there would have been a supply side of first tier candidates who have been willing to run against her and try to stand in the way of potentially the first woman of color nominee ever.

The people who might have beaten her actually might have beaten her. I can't imagine actually running against her. So I think she would have ended up as nominee, but in a process that would have done damage to her. So on balance, she has been better off despite the speed date element of it, which is very real. I think the shorter thing helped her slide into the nomination with conference calls. Big win. But the not having wins in a primary nomination.

Not having a chance to get better. That is costing her. That is that is true. Listen, Barack Obama, and he would say this, too, was not a good candidate for many months in 2007. And being out there and, you know, there's something to be said for being able to go to Topeka and New Haven and work the material before you go to Broadway.

Now, he started on Broadway and receded into Topeka and New Haven. But he emerged in the summer of 2007 as a very, very good candidate. And she didn't have that opportunity. And so that's a loss as well. But I'll tell you, I just have to say we've lost one other thing, which is time.

We're out of time. I like it. I'm going to need a neck brace after that one. And yes, my friends, that is a hammer and sickle stabbing Italy in the back back there for you YouTube viewers. Now that we're on television too, we apologize for that.

And anyone who has listened to this podcast knows that Ron Brownstein is a very, very smart, insightful, and learned person.

observer of politics and if you don't believe me read his columns every week in the atlantic and on cnn.com you always learn something those is way around the fried chicken dives of los angeles too absolutely which is no small no small version and the noodles saying golden bird exactly honey in fact you'd be smaller if you didn't follow yeah yeah yeah

I haven't made fun of your hat yet. Thanks for having me, guys. All right. Thanks, Ron. All right. All right. Thank you, guys. Bye. Bye. Bye.