Trump's Pollster on the Elusive First-Time Voter
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Tuck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. Guys, this race is extremely tight, and Democrats are panicked that even after booting Joe Biden, that Trump may still win. That may explain why you've seen Kamala Harris in a much more offensive posture as of late, blitzing the airwaves,

targeting media to make up losses with Black and Hispanic men. She's here, she's there, she's everywhere, she's even on Fox. Harris is supposed to do an interview with Brett Baier on Wednesday as she tries to make inroads with the independents and Republicans. Meanwhile, Trump seems to be on his Eros tour. He performed at Coachella this past weekend and then will be at Madison Square Garden in New York about a week before the election. I know, very strange since New York was

will always be a blue state and will not have any electoral college value. But there are a number of swing districts in the area that if they flip or remain red, then the Republicans can hold on to the House of Representatives. To me, it looks like Trump's team can see that it's better to keep Trump in the background. Don't have him debate again when he's front and center. It's just not working.

On this show, I have Trump's pollster, John McLaughlin. He just released a new polling memo, so we unpack all of that. I asked him for his reaction to Harris's top strategist, David Plouffe, who said that even though they're anxious, he would rather be Kamala than Trump because he believes that Trump's team is over-reliant on first-time voters and that he has a lower ceiling than Harris.

Now, McLaughlin has been working for Trump for decades, and in the past, he's been criticized for his overly optimistic view of the polls. Imagine if Donald Trump was your boss. But he did predict late in the game in 2016 when others couldn't imagine it, that Trump would win. I think it's worth listening to, even if you can't stomach hearing from the Trump team. Don't worry, I'll have a Democratic pollster on next week.

Oh, and definitely check out my latest column at Puck.News, where I talk about the Trump campaign's aggressive strategy to tie Harris to Biden based on an unforced error on The View last week. They're trying to make it into the kind of flub that would haunt her and essentially argue against her campaign's message that she's a change candidate. We'll see how that goes, but we know the new ads are hitting the airwaves this week.

I also have some insider details on the Trump transition and how it's shaping up to be the Don Jr. show. He says he's looking to weed out all the snakes, but he's also fostered a lot of reconciliations with people who have been on Trump's bad side, like J.D. Vance, who called Trump America's Hitler, and Tucker Carlson, who said he hated him passionately.

To read more about who's trying to get into Trump's good graces through Donald Trump Jr., go to puck.news.com and you can use my discount code Tara20 for 20% off a subscription at Puck. John, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you for the opportunity, Tara. Of course. So you've got a fresh new memo out with Trump's other pollster, Tony Fabrizio, and you're

What it looks like to me, I mean, you have Trump up in every state. The Rust Belt by one point each, including North Carolina. And I would say that's pretty much tied within the margin of error. You have him up by three points in Nevada and up...

Five points in Georgia. That's pretty comfortable, right? And so in Arizona, you also have him up by three points, I believe. Right. So the Sun Belt looks pretty comfortable for him is what you're saying. Maybe North Carolina. I would say being up one point is still within the margin of error. So it looks to me like what you're seeing is a pretty tied race because...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he can't win this race just by winning the Sun Belt. He needs to win one Rust Belt state. So that means he either needs to win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, or Michigan. And you only see him up by one point in all those states. And I just wonder, you know, the Trump team seems so bullish. You guys have so much bravado. You're like, we're winning, we're winning, we're winning. And then you have David Plouffe out there from Kamala Harris's team. He's the director to 270. He's been doing a bunch of interviews. And then you have David Plouffe,

Basically saying, hey, you know, this race is going to be super tight. It's in the margin of error. Basically, to me, he's sending out warning signals that like she could lose. Right. And I'm hearing the opposite from your team. So can you kind of explain to me why you have different messaging, even though the polling kind of seems the same to me? I mean, maybe they have different polling. I think the difference is I agree with you. It's very close.

I mean, at this stage, for those of us who worked for Donald Trump for a number of years, for us, it's like we're not used to this. Like we're used to at this point, the real clear politics average back in 2020 had us down 10 points. And even against Hillary Clinton that we ended up winning at this point, at this day, we were down seven points, 48-41 nationally. In all the battleground states, we were down.

So we're used to being down. Now, so psychologically, we may be a point ahead, but statistically, you're right. When we're doing surveys of 800 people who are likely voters in the battleground states, that's a statistical 19 times out of 20 or plus or minus 3.5%. Now, I have a certain candidate that I'm working for who wants us to be accurate within a tenth of a percent all the time. And you have a margin, our polls are inexact. But the difference is,

Many of these polls and and David Plouffe who I don't know, but I have a great deal of respect for Extremely smart they know they're in a dead heat race You know, they've they tried to rush this like a snap election like a European parliamentary election where you pick the candidate boom you run through because she never won a primary she never won a caucus so they were trying to rush this election and what's happened is

The honeymoon that she had after she got picked has faded. And now she's in a situation where people are saying, well, Trump really was a better president. But what they didn't publish in that memo was Trump has a positive job rating. She has a significant negative job rating. They all focus, a lot of the media focuses on Trump.

on the favorable and unfavorable where they're about the same. And it was, she was, you know, she made an initial net 15 point move. It's huge. Yeah, back in July from a significant negative to a one to one positive. But now it's eroded over time as she gets exposed to the voters and they realize, oh, you mean she was Biden's vice president for the last four years? And we got a gift a week ago Monday on The View when it was supposed to be a softball interview and then

And a very good question. She's where the interviewer said, you know, would you change anything over the last four years? And Vice President Harris said, not one thing comes to mind. And that's why. How do you run as a change candidate when you have high inflation, open borders, rising crime? You have endless wars that that, you know, is going on in the Middle East and Ukraine. And she said she wouldn't change anything. And even after the surrender of Afghanistan.

How do you how do you say you wouldn't try to do something better? So have you pulled that comment? I actually did some reporting for Puck last week about how they're kind of trying to turn this comment into, you know, the John Kerry's. I was before before I was against it or the John McCain's. You know, the fundamentals of the economy are strong during the obviously pandemic.

collapse of the economy or, you know, every every election cycle, there's like a phrase like Mitt Romney complaining that 47 percent don't pay their fair share of taxes. But I just wonder, is this line really the same thing? I mean, is it really have the same sort of power as those other lines did? Well, I think it's given us some some again, this is a grind. It's not a bounce.

So we're grinding up. It's given us some momentum to keep grinding up because that's the case we were making. Because we'd seen in our previous polls in the battleground states that six out of 10 voters believe she shares the blame for the failures the last four years with President Biden. She is Biden's vice president. But she was able to communicate that she was the change candidate. She had done a really good job at that. But it was it was built on nothing. There was no foundation to it.

And ultimately, her being the border czar, I mean, it's come on. So you're trying to build a campaign on something where you don't admit failure. And you say, gee, I wouldn't change anything. And people are going to the supermarkets every day and paying higher prices. They're not going down. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that her team should have had her ready for that line. I think everyone, every political professional gasped when they saw that thinking, yeah,

Why was she not ready for that? She wasn't asked just once on The View. She was asked twice, including by Stephen Colbert. And they should have had a line ready for her to go. You know, it was her first real media outing as well last week. And it was all...

relatively friendly press. So that was hard because essentially what she said refuted the premise of her campaign that she's the change candidate. I would agree. I just wonder if it's going to have that same sort of impact as some of these other lines that truly changed the game in some of the final days of a campaign. I think when you see the ads tomorrow...

On TV, it might. How much are they spending? Do you know? No, I don't know exactly, but it's like I'm in the polling silo. I was just wondering, have you pulled that ad? Have you pulled it? Or I guess not. The ads are tested. Tony Fabrizio and the team, they do a lot of testing of the ads. What was the reaction to that ad? People, because it's true. So people, it connects with them.

And it makes them think so. And it definitely, definitely erodes her ability to become the change candidate. As as Tony put out in the memo, when you ask who delivers the change American needs in these battleground states, Trump leads 47, 43. And our goal is to break the 50 mark. They're both basically fighting to be the change candidate, essentially. When two thirds of the voters say the country is on the wrong track.

You want to be the change candidate. That's fair to say. Okay, I want to get to a few other comments that David Plouffe has made since he has been making the rounds. He was on Pod Save America. He was on New York Magazine. He's clearly trying to get some messaging out right now. You know, he said that ultimately he'd rather be Kamala Harris than Donald Trump because she has a higher ceiling than his 48%. He thinks that she can get as much as 49, 49.5, maybe 50% in some of these states, whereas Trump, you know,

you know, in the past two elections has not been able to crack 48%. Not if they think that she's Joe Biden's vice president, not if they look at her record over the last four years. So the trick is she wants, he wants them to forget. He wants them to look at her. Oh, she's a brand new candidate. She's somebody who just appeared. But if you remind voters that she is the vice president and she supported the president and

And a lot of she said she was the last person to leave the room after they made the decision to surrender Afghanistan. And she fully supported. Well, it's interesting because the NBC is actually reporting that her team is sitting down and really evaluating what are the lines that she can use when asked this question, which will be asked over and over again if she continues to press, which she's clearly doing. I mean, she's blitzing, blitzing, blitzing. And it's kind of interesting to see Trump pulling back, which makes me think

that the campaign has realized the less you see of Trump, the more you like him. But yeah, I think, you know, this is obviously not something that's going to sit well with Biden, but they're going to have to come up with ways to disagree with him and be able to put it out there. Well, President Trump is out there. He's barnstorming the battleground states. I mean, he's working every day and he's going to be doing multiple cities.

Plus, and he certainly makes himself available to the press and he's doing podcasts and all sorts of things. He's just not doing national press. Like he's not on the big shows. He didn't do 60 Minutes. Oh, I would you do 60 Minutes because when they didn't,

When they edit her answers, they have editorial control. It's not live. But what's interesting. Yeah, that's true. That's fair. And after his previous experiences with them, it's like, why would you go into an ambush? So at the same time, Kamala Harris, she is going to do a town hall on Fox, which she's going to be out there. That was smart, I would say. But it shows you how they realize their previous strategy is not working.

So they have to and they realize also what they're trying to do is they're trying to stop Donald Trump.

from expanding and motivating his base because President Trump's base is definitely fired up. And we're at the stage now where when you look at the size of our vote, where certainly nationally and in the battleground states, our vote share is higher than it's been historically for the last two elections at this point. We're at the stage now where we're telling people you have to bring family and friends to the polls.

Because if they get out and you bring family and friends, that's where David Plouffe, you give him credit when he worked for Zuckerberg four years ago. He's the one who came up with the strategy of battleground counties inside the battleground states. Back in 2016, we figured out

We could bring out new voters, these casual voters who didn't always vote, what they call now low propensity voters. We can bring those working class voters out in the Sun Belt and the Rust Belt and inject them into the election because Trump appealed to them on trade and immigration. And basically, they were middle class voters, working middle class voters when they came out.

That's when we were able to get our electoral majority. Now, four years ago, when he was working for Zuckerberg and he wrote his book about Citizens Guide to Defeating Donald Trump, it was about registering voters within a handful of counties in the battleground states and then making it easier for them to vote. And so he's doubling down on that strategy.

But a lot of the things that they were doing four years ago aren't as successful because people are saying, no, things aren't good right now. I mean, the majority of those voters still think the country's on the wrong track because

And they certainly disapprove of the job that Kamala Harris has done as Biden's vice president. So that's the challenge for them. So it's interesting what you just said about that Trump's base is fired up and they want to go out and vote. And yeah, they are often low propensity voters, but he can't win this election on his base alone, right? Right. And a lot of your numbers are based on first time voters. And actually, since we are talking about pluff,

He said it's a rickety platform to be basing your election projections on first-time voters because they don't have a history of voting and that you would really need a sophisticated ground game to get these people out. And as I've reported, the Trump team has decentralized its ground game instead of leaving it to the RNC. They've been working with super PACs, one of them led by Elon Musk. And it's, you know, there have been issues in

They've restarted their door knocking program back in August and July in very late time. So it's not that they don't have a very sophisticated door knocking registering operation the same way that the Democrats do. But I just want to ask you about your own numbers. How much of your numbers are based on first time voters? And I'm not just talking about people who just turned 18, but people who didn't vote for him in 2020. Right. Well, some of it is, but most of it is people who are just

who are just fired up to go vote that they think the country's on the wrong track. But on the other hand, what I would say is, besides that, we've broadened our coalitions.

So that the Kamala Harris campaign is fighting for African-American voters right now because we're doing better than we did ever before with African-American voters. They're fighting for Latino voters because we're doing better than we ever did with Latino voters. What's the percentage pointage that points that you're seeing in terms of the increase with African-Americans and Latino voters? Well, with African-Americans, we're someplace between 15 and 20 percent of the African-American vote. And if a Republican gets that,

will win decisively. But that's what the battle is right now, because basically over the last two years, we've had a strategy to broaden the Trump coalition by adding African-American voters, Hispanic voters, younger voters and suburban women. And in major ways, we have we've eaten into the Democratic coalition, the old Biden coalition, because

underneath it all, they disapprove the job that Joe Biden did, when now they're saying, oh my gosh, she was his vice president and she says she wouldn't change a thing. So that disapproval is now connecting with her. And people who want change, they don't want open borders anymore.

They don't want high inflation anymore. They don't want to pay a mortgage for a home. If you're a young voter and you're looking for a home, the mortgage payment is double right now than it was when Trump was president because of the interest rates.

And it's not going down. The mortgage rate went up. But Trump doesn't have control over the Federal Reserve. Trump has control over the federal spending. And it's the deficit in the spending. But his plans aren't exactly deficit busting. Let's be serious. By the way, when you talk to pro-growth economists like Larry Kudlow, who served him very well when he was there, Art Laffer, Steve Forbes, they will tell you that Steve Forbes, very good friend, good economist,

economic expert, he told me, he's been on the media saying that it won't be a recession if she goes in because of her tax increases. It'll be a depression because the idea of, you know, and this is where we're getting suburban voters back. And President Trump started with this message when he was in Nassau Coliseum, where he,

Kamala Harris wants to raise taxes on 401ks. Capital gains is going to go from 24 to 32. Kamala Harris wants to raise taxes on basically your homes when you have a capital gains. Originally, she was 45, and then she went from 24% to 32. So that's a 33% increase in the capital gains. That affects suburban voters. That affects people with...

retirement savings. It's interesting that you mentioned Nassau County because they were really impacted by the repeal of the SALT tax, the state and local tax deductions that Trump actually passed during his term. How much of your numbers, your polling data is based on first time voters? First time, it's a small margin. It's a small percentage. Like what? Like what percentage would you say? It would be less than 5% because

The last election, I mean, what's different is more of the casual voters. So there's more voters who voted, say, in 20 that didn't vote in 22. Because you had 160 million people come out in 2020.

And I think the last midterm was 118 million. So and the previous presidential election was in 2016 was 139 million. So it looks like you're going to have a high turnout, like 160 million or more. Particularly polls don't tell you what the turnout is going to be like. Why do you think it's going to be high this time? I mean, it was COVID last time and people were mailing in their ballots and they were bored and they were watching the election chaotic. Because all the polls are saying it's close.

So when they say it's close and the Senate's up for grabs and Congress is up for grabs and there's a ton, I mean, there's a ton of advertising. They're talking about billions of dollars. So when everybody's hearing from the national media, it's close. That's a turnout. You know, it's almost like I think all these polls that say it's close now, as opposed to,

Four years ago and eight years ago, when we were behind, it was a motivation for Trump voters to come out to prove those polls wrong. Now it's like, oh, Trump's tied or a little ahead. Now it's like a motivation for both sides.

So I almost think it's like a liberal plot to get some false sense of security that Trump voters think they're going to win. This rate is very close. We're going to have three weeks of very close numbers and data. And it's really going to be a battle between, because now you have the early in-person voting starting in a lot of these states where they have party registration, where they have race, affinity, and age, and gender. And you can figure out who's winning or losing. And you can compare that to 2020.

where, yeah, sure, a lot of those states in 2020, the early vote, the mail-in vote, the early in-person vote, they voted two to one for Biden. And on election day, our vote came out two to one. So it's going to be interesting to compare the actual turnout and the actual numbers of 2024 with 2020 and see who's- You think it will exceed 20? You think it could possibly exceed 2020? Yes. Yes.

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Trump's operation, are you concerned about it? It's ground operation. It's not even really theirs. Well, you know what? Four years ago, I sat on weekly conference calls with people from the RNC who were saying, we don't see any signs of the Biden ground game.

And they were sending people door knocking during COVID. The Biden ground game was done by nonprofits. But you didn't really need a ground game in COVID. What? In fact, if someone showed up and knocked on my door, I'd be like, start spraying them with disinfectant, frankly. But that's what the Republicans were doing back then.

Now it's much more targeted. It's much more. But are we sure it's targeted because they've left it to Elon Musk super PAC and turning point. And that's, you know, run by Charlie Kirk, who's not really known as a, you know, ground operator. He's, he's a firecracker, you know, rabble rouser CPAC guy and Elon Musk. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's hired a bunch of like DC agents.

you know, operatives who ran DeSantis' Never Back Down campaign that spent $6,700 per person on Get Out the Vote and still lost by 30 points in Iowa. I went through this in 2016 with President Trump.

And he was like, they have a great organization. They have a great turnout. I said, yes, but we have a mob. And you need to be on Facebook. On election day, we had him out there driving out the vote, calling into radio stations in key states, showing up on local TV. Wait, did you just say we have a mob? Yes, we have a mob. But I mean it in a positive sense. We have a lot of people who will do...

We'll do what he asked him. I mean, President Trump is a very historic figure. And he not only basically had a successful candidacy, he's built a movement. And the people there that when you say you need to vote early, but get your friends and family to vote early, I think when these states start having a...

early in-person voting, you're going to see long lines and it won't be just Democrats on those lines this time. You'll see plenty of Trump supporters on those lines. Well, we'll see because he did spend a lot of time bashing early voting, mail-in ballot voting after the 2020 election. It's hard to change the messaging on that. So we'll see. But I want to ask you again about Plouffe since he has done his media tour. He said that their team believes that they're undercutting your team on Republican and independent voters voting.

I'm guessing these are Nikki Haley type voters. Are you seeing that? No.

No, seriously, we're getting we're scoring over 90 percent of the Republicans. Plus, we're winning independents. So where are these Nikki Haley voters? Are you just count them as Democrats at this point? The ones who are Republicans or independents are voting for Donald Trump. The ones who the ones who voted for her in the primary that were Biden voters anyway, because she did. You were talking about open primaries where Democrats and Biden favorables were crossing entire primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, other places.

they went back to Kamala Harris because they were going to vote for Biden anyway. So this open primary myth creation was, yeah, you get these voters who were like, oh, there's no real contest on my side. I'll go into the Republican primary and vote against Trump. Well, they went back to where they were going to be anyway.

And so Trump has pulled in those voters that he can. And it shows in the polls when you look at the when you look at the, you know, the real clear politics average four years ago, we were 42 percent of the national popular vote today. Today, we're up to 47, maybe 48.

So we're above where we were in the national popular vote and in the battleground states. And the key thing is for the battleground states, we want to go over 50% in some of these battleground states because then it's very hard for Kamala Harris to come back and win. So when she's basically running ads with, you know, they're

deranged, never-Trump Republicans. You mean Liz Cheney? Is that what you're saying? Oh, top of mind. I just came right to it. Are you calling Liz Cheney deranged? Not personally. And she'd take exception to that. But she's certainly bailed out on a lot of conservative principles by supporting Kamala Harris. She's choosing democracy. That's her line. We kind of think that our candidate who they tried to throw off the ballot...

was defending democracy. So we kind of think you should let the voters decide. So the other side likes to throw people off the ballot, whether it's Trump or JFK.

So basically what you're saying right now is that, okay, on this day, right? Everyone's always looking at those real clear politics day in history. It's national polling, right? Right. So on this day in 2016, I think you mentioned this, Clinton was up by 6.7 points. Biden was up by 9.2. Harris is up by 1.7 points. Yeah. So-

Democrats, they always have to have a large margin in the national polls to beat Trump, right? Is this because Trump is underpolled or is this just the way the electoral college is versus the national voters? I mean, if you were Harris's team, what number would you feel comfortable with? I think that I think they feel very uncomfortable right now. They need to be higher. I am buying one by like over 4%.

So and that was a close race in three of the battleground states that out of the 160 million, the election was decided by 44000 votes.

12,000 in Arizona, Georgia, and 20,000 in Wisconsin. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at this day too. On this day in 2020, Biden was up by seven points in Pennsylvania and he only won by a point. Right. And in Wisconsin, I don't remember what the margin was in Wisconsin. Margin was 20. Oh, remember the Washington Post a week out from the election? It had us down 17.

They put out a poll that we were down 17 a week out from the election. And President Trump called me and he says, what's the matter with this poll? I said, has eight points more Democrats. The independents look very funky.

And he says, well, why would they put that poll out? And I said, well, they're very smart people. They're all PhDs. And I mean, it's a smart polling operation. But I said, they know that two to one, the early vote is voting for Biden and the election day vote is voting two to one for you. So I said, maybe they're hoping that if they think you're down by 17 in Wisconsin, they're

And there's long lines and it's cold and it's during COVID and snowing. Oh, you think that the Washington Post was trying to impact the election? Come on, stop. I'm not letting you get away with that. Stop it. Why would they have us down 17? I don't know. But that seems... I'm not going with that. But listen, I want to ask you, though. Do you think the polling has gotten better? Yes. Is it more accurate this time? I think it has gotten better because...

people are people, you know, there was an examination how far off they were last time and they were under polling Republicans, whether it was by intent or just, and I think this time they're less likely to do that. I think there's still examples of where they have too many Biden 2020 voters in the sample, or they have too few Republicans or they have something with their independence where they behave more like Democrats and,

or ideologically they skew to the left, that's a turnout challenge. You have two very close political bases right now that are battling to get their voters out and to win a very narrow swing group of persuadable voters. So you're facing like, I mean, 21 days of hand-to-hand combat.

until the polls close that's the thing if this is hand-to-hand combat the fact that trump's team is outsourcing it seems risky i mean the fec just allowed them to start sharing data between super PACs and the campaigns and that's why they did it and i know like listen the trump team is at a huge cast disadvantage right what do they have a third of kamala harris's money so they don't have the money for the get out the vote in the same way but if it is hand-to-hand combat

Wouldn't you be worried? No, because James Blair, Suzy Wiles, Suzy ran Florida for Trump the last two times, which was supposed to be a battleground state. And Florida being very...

advanced in terms of the way they report and keep track of votes, whether it's absentee, early in person, and on election day. They did a very good job. And now they're trying to bring that to the battleground states and a lot of the other states where we might be able to broaden the map too as well. But it's a battle because I agree with you that

You know, David Plouffe, the Democrats, they are very good at this and they will have voters appear that that basically they've been out there registering since they've taken over her campaign. You can see places where all of a sudden pockets of votes were showing up in terms of new registrants. Plus, in terms of, you know, now we'll actually see them voting, whether it's absentee or early in person. No, they're formidable. They are. They are. They are very formidable and very strategic.

And it's a real challenge for us. But it's a it's a close election right now. We have to we have to run like we're the underdog again, like we're behind and we have to come from behind. You don't sound like you're the underdog, though. I'll say that we are. Let me tell you, we are. All the reasons you mentioned, you know, I mean, yeah, we are the underdog. So there's a lot. You have big media, big tech. They don't cut us any slack.

If anything, there's a lot of bias and a lot of the reporting goes on. They also, you know, they also, I mean, she's got a billion dollars. I mean, and she's got, she's got democratic infrastructure that's experienced at this. So it's formidable. Who,

Who are the persuadable voters for you guys? Um, they're, it's, it's mainly suburban voters where you're looking at, uh, you're looking at people that don't like to pay taxes that are going to pay a lot more taxes if Kamala Harris gets elected. Um, and, and, uh, you know, they're, they're moderates in their independence and they're, you know, we're fighting for the center again. So, uh, and that's fine. I mean, we could, we have, we have excellent programs for president Trump where we're,

We will have a pro-growth economy. We'll secure the border. They'll feel safer. You'll have a safer, more secure America. And, you know, that's...

That's a that's that's very important to not just the basic voter who's in the cities or in the exter. But it's a suburban voter. Why isn't Trump debating again? Why go into an ambush again? We don't. Why debate when it's three on one? It's like most of the voters are going to vote between in the battleground states between today and November 1st.

So when they talk about another debate and it's like the last week of the campaign, it's too late. Why put yourself through the aggravation? Take yourself off the campaign trail. Need to go out and see the voters in those states. I'm sure they've calculated that the Harris campaign needs to debate more than he does. And I think less Trump actually helps to get out voters. When do you think we'll have the results of the election? How soon do you think we'll know? Oh, I don't know. I'm reading a lot of media reports right now where they're talking about some of these states and

how quickly they may be able to calculate the votes. So it's, there's, even though we're 22 days out, there's legal challenges going on every day about

when you can count people, you know, if they send in an absentee and it's postmarked or can you still open it up after election day? Are they counting the, it's different state by state. Are they counting the ballots before election day? So this is just going to be like a legal battle for weeks and weeks. Is that what you think? I don't know if it's really close. It could be, but that's why I think Trump is, is calling on people to swamp the vote because if it's big enough,

we'll be fine. But on the other hand, I don't think the Democrats are giving us that ground. So we just have to keep on trying to

you know, like I said to you, not just get our Trump base out, but also get our friends and family out and win the Senate. Okay. And so when you polled, people say they're going to vote early or they're going to mail in their ballots. Yes. Republicans believe that that's a safe way to vote now? Especially early in person because you're going someplace. Really? Yeah, sure. You've been able to convince them otherwise after Trump said that it was not safe to vote early. Well, there's been a lot of changes. Like when you look at Georgia, for example,

Georgia, they have voter ID. Thanks to the late Speaker David Ralston, whether you vote early absentee, whether you vote early in person, whether you vote on Election Day, you have to show ID. And what's interesting is in 2020, during the presidential election, you had a million votes that came in absentee or dropbox.

And when Governor Kemp got reelected with this new law, after which the Democrats complained, Biden complained, they moved the all-star game for Major League Baseball. You know, they were just really upset about voter ID. But after the election, when Brian Kemp won, Stacey Abrams wasn't complaining that it was an unfair election. And Hershel Walker lost and he wasn't complaining that it was an unfair election.

So I think certain states like that, where you've got an even playing ground and there is voter ID, we should be able to know what's going on on election night. Pennsylvania seems like it's going to get messy. Yeah, there's a lot of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. You called the election in 2016, basically two weeks before, and you said that Trump was going to win. A lot of people thought.

That was a pie in the sky, rosy prediction. You are clearly seeing something on the ground. Is there anything that you are seeing right now that is an anomaly that is making you feel things are going one way or another? In terms of what's going on with the polls right now, I'm not used to this, that we're ahead and we're doing well, but that's good.

So I think we're going to win again, but I would expect it to be another close election. So we have a lot of work to do over the next 22 days. This is the ringer. So let's get your prediction. We love predictions on the show. Let's go through the seven battleground states.

What's your prediction? I think we're probably going to win all of them. By how much? Wisconsin. They're all going to be close. I mean, Wisconsin, what's interesting about Wisconsin, when we won it, it was by 22,000 votes. When Biden won it, it was 20,000 votes out of 3 million. I think it's going to be very close again. And I think this time we're going to be able to win though. And Pennsylvania? Pennsylvania would be close, but I think we'll win that one.

I think we're going to win the ballot in the ballot ground states, but I think they're going to be close. I think the Democrats will have, you know, the Democrats, they know how to get in those mail-in ballots.

And we've got to make sure that we can win on Election Day. We can close the gap on the mail-in ballots that you have. You have 300,000 more Republicans. The deficit of 600,000 by registration has been closed. But we've got to convince more Republicans to vote absentee if they can. And at the same time, make sure we win on Election Day by significant margins. Do you think that the hurricane will have any impact on the race? Well, we've got to make sure that they let us. The area of western North Carolina,

That was impacted most greatly outside of like the city of Asheville normally votes Democratic, but the rest of Buncombe County and the other counties in the region tend to vote Republican. So we've got to make sure that the people, if they've had to leave their homes because of electricity or water or not, I mean, if there's been so much tragedy in that area.

where President Trump has tried to help with Franklin Graham and some others. We've got to make sure if they've had to leave their homes and they've gone out of state, we've got to get them an absentee ballot, make sure they can vote. And at the same time, we've got to make sure that if their polling place has been washed away or destroyed, that people that want to vote earlier or vote on election day can get to a polling place and vote. So it's a challenge. So, I mean, we won 1% last time and all these polls say it's like 1% again, so.

So that's very, so that really matters. But Asheville, which has pretty much been wiped away, was Democratic, right? The city is Democratic, but Buncombe County right around it, because the rural area took a pretty big hit. That's a Republican. Do you think Trump will win the national vote or just the Electoral College vote? I think we can, but that's what the next three weeks are about. Right now, we're two points behind in the national, in the popular, national popular vote.

And, but she seems to be stuck that, you know, she's under 50 and she's stuck. So we got a challenge to, you know, we'll see, we'll see how the, how the rally at Madison square garden goes and,

How we do, you know, broadening our base to a majority. I know you'll be at Madison Square Garden because you're a New Yorker, but like, why? I don't get it. Why? Does Trump just want to play Madison Square Garden? Well, I mean, it'll be a national news story. So it'll be broadcast on, you know, major cable networks like Fox and Newsmax will put it on.

But also it'll be, it'll be a lot of news stories. So it's a good platform for him. Something that he wanted to do. And it's like, he's a New Yorker and. But is this like Hillary not going to Michigan and going to Texas? Is this the same kind of thing where you see these candidates out and about and states that aren't battleground wasting time? Actually, it'll be, it'll be a good time for people to actually listen and,

If you're an undecided voter, you can tune in. And a lot of our exposure comes on social media, on digital exposure and people who stream it. So it'll be if anyone has a doubt about voting or a doubt about who they're going to vote for, it's a great format for President Trump to talk to tens of millions of voters across the United States.

Well, thanks, John. This was great. I appreciate your time and I will keep looking out for your polling memos. Thank you, Tara.

That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins. If you like this show, please subscribe, rate it, share it with your friends. If you like my reporting, please go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. You can use the discount code Tara20 for 20% off a subscription at Puck. See you again on Thursday.