Trump’s 4th Threesome

24:43it's just so fucking it's it's it's the grossest thing um yeah it's just it's so stupid it's just so it's also so stupid like to you really it means it's so painfully dumb and and gross it's all dumb and gross which i guess is kind of the theme of the entire area in which we're living but the center for immigration studies which is um the far right uh immigration organization um they, because their whole argument here, Trump's argument, Miller's argument is this like birth tourism, right? That people are coming here illegally, and then they're having kids so they can be American citizens. And then, you know, I guess then the whole country falls apart.

25:29But even they say that this is, they put birth tourism at roughly 20 ,000 cases a year. there were there were about 3.61 million births in the united states every year so that is well under one percent and that number the 20 000 is contested by just about everyone because this is a right-wing organization some people think it's far far less like a couple thousand um but even if you go by their arguments it is like it is just again much like their voter fraud shit uh completely made up argument. It is the danger. It seems absurd to us. The danger of it is you take the most egregious, outlandish, rarest, if possibly non-existent example, and you use it to take down an entire system.

26:17This is Ronald Reagan and the welfare queens all over again, where this is a way to try to undo birthright citizenship, which as you and I talked about on YouTube after the hearing, you have a potential Supreme Court majority or near majority at this point who would suggest that that could be done statutorily. And so you kind of understand, I understand the short-term political argument there. The longer-term thing is to try to make people think this is something that's really happening when it's not actually happening. Yeah. And then the flip side of that from picking the most egregious example is basically what John Roberts argued about the dissent in this case, which was the dissent was like, well, the word domicile should mean where the parents have allegiance to.

27:05And if the parents were born in some other country and have allegiance to that country and owe something to that country, then the child shouldn't be a US citizen. And Roberts was like, okay, well, what about foreign nationals who are legal permanent residents in this country. And if you're a foreign national, if you have dual citizenship, or even if you just have a, you know, you're a legal permanent resident in this country and you're still a citizen of another country, you do have some allegiance to that other country and you are still to pay some taxes to that other country. And so now we're saying that all foreign born people in this country who have children here, those children are American citizens.

27:45And then at that point, who gets to decide who's a citizen? Trump. Trump gets Trump and Stephen Miller get to decide who's a citizen. They get that power. The government gets to decide. That's their argument. And that is. And I think that is the argument that most people in this country would not get behind, that your citizenship is determined not by your birth, not by where your parents are from, but by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. Yeah, that's right. All right. Let's talk about what's happening with the people who are trying to bounce these jokers out of office. On Tuesday, Colorado held its primaries.

28:15And once again, progressive candidates won the day. In the first district, which is basically the heart of Metro Denver, 29-year-old immigrant turned lawyer turned insurgent DSA candidate Milat Kiros beat Diana Deget, a 15-term incumbent by about 10 points. Kiros is a PhD student who lost her job at a prominent law firm in 2023. After refusing to take down an open letter, she wrote about what she saw as a crackdown on criticism of Israel. How did she manage to beat an entrenched incumbent like Diana DeGette, in part because of exchanges like this from a debate in early June.

29:14Because as a party, we can point to what we accomplished in achieving health care for all and say, this is what Democrats achieved for working people. This is how we delivered. Pretty good. Very good. It's not just policy where Kyrus has managed to draw a sharp distinction. Here's a question she got in a local news interview a week ago about an ad she reposted from a super PAC supporting her. I believe that the ad also suggested that centrist Democrats suck shit. Is that your belief as well? Okay.

29:45Just hearing him, just hearing the interviewer say that was enjoyable. Because of the makeup of the district, Kyrus is almost certainly to win the general election. And she has said she won't vote for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker if he takes corporate PAC money. In the primary for the state's eighth district, northeast of Denver, progressive state representative Manny Routenel defeated a more moderate Democrat by 28 points. he will take on vulnerable Republican Gabe Evans, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country, a big frontline race. And in the governor's race, the progressive but not DSA state attorney general Phil Weiser beat out Senator Michael Bennett by about 12 points.

30:25I know you and Tommy talked about this on Pod Save America Only Friends, but what were your thoughts on Colorado and where it fits in with the New York results and what's to come? So I think the Kyrus race against DeGette fits very squarely in the narrative coming out of New York. We have a progressive insurgent candidate running against a long entrenched Democratic establishment figure. And like in New York, the Democrat is not a moderate per se, but is, I mean, DeGette's a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. now more moderate than Kiros and maybe more moderate than some of the voters of this district that Kamala Harris won by 56 points.

31:07And so this district, I know it's in Colorado, and so we think of it differently. It is just about as Democratic as the three in New York. Yeah, that's a very important point. Harris won by more than 50 points in all of them. And it speaks to the very real anger that exists within the party towards the Democratic establishment, the status quo, and the system. And we talked about what we talked about in the New York. We talked about the New York races just last week, I think. Talked about the ways in which those anger manifests itself. And Kira's in a great race. She won by double digits. And so that fits in that narrative.

31:47The other two races don't fit exactly in that narrative. What is true of the Weiser-Bennett race? I guess it is fair to say that Weiser is a progressive. but Bennett, but he's not that much more notably progressive than, um, than Bennett. And he is not an insurgent. He is the two-term attorney general of the state who worked for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Um, he, where he, what he did do was he did weaponize that anger against the establishment. And one of the elements of it, which is Bennett's been in Washington for a couple of decades now, or almost two decades. Uh, he was appointed in 2009, I believe to replace Kinsalazar.

32:27But he had attacked him for not fighting hard enough against Trump, being part of an establishment that let Trump win, and then ran on all the things that Weiser had done as a very good attorney general, fighting back against Trump with lawsuits and other sorts of things. And so, but it's not, he's not a member of the DSA. It's different. He also was someone with, he, as good of name ID and probably more like recent depth of knowledge relationship with the voters than Bennett because he's the attorney. He's a high profile attorney general in the state and Bennett's been in Washington. And then the Routanel Shannon Byrd race is interesting and kind of speaks to how progressive candidates I think will win in these frontline districts if the running is.

33:06Routanel did not run to the left. No, ran to the center. He ran to the center. He even denounced his own former veganism. But he did attack Byrd. Unlike Tallarico, he really was a a vegan. Yes, he actually was a vegan. He was a PETA activist in one of the top farm districts in the country and has walked away from that. And he sort of he sort of walked away from Medicare for all also. Yes. And being a DSA member where but where he went after, which is, I think, also interesting note was when he went after Bird was on ice because Bird had had a vote or two in the state legislature that was suggested.

33:43I think it was like cooperate. It was like state cooperation. Ice cooperations, yes. It wasn't like she was endorsing ice or wearing ice T-shirts, but that was a major issue in the race. And so these are all different. They do speak to the fact that you really don't want to be, particularly in the Wiser and Kyrus race, you really don't want to be a longtime Democratic establishment figure. Like that, you're vulnerable in a way, which you've never been before. And that the voter anger at the establishment and specifically the fact that the establishment has not done enough to improve the lives of working people in this country or enough to beat back Donald Trump and Republicans is probably, at least what the primaries are telling us, probably even more powerful than anger at Democrats for being too centrist or too moderate.

34:38Yes, yes. I think the issue that - And it's race dependent, of course, but clearly in the Bennett race, in the Routanel race, in some of the other ones we're seeing, like that is a factor that is uniting all of this anti-establishment fervor. The ideological thing is hard to parse because it's talked about one way by the pundits analyzing the race. And I think it's viewed by voters in a different way. Yeah. And I think a big issue in a lot of these races is obviously Israel and Gaza. Yes. And it's played itself in different ways. It was obviously a central part of Kyrus's race and her political identity and her entry into politics was because of her views on Israel and Gaza.

35:23And it does represent the issue where there's the greatest distance between the party establishment and the voter, and particularly the Democratic primary voter and the most active Democratic primary voters. And I think that issue is ideological, but it's also a litmus test of sorts in the sense that it says if you are unwilling to, in the minds of voters, call what everyone is seeing with their eyes genocide or to react to it in the right way, it says something about who you are and who you stand for. And so like, is it, I think it's too easy to say that it's like just, people want to say it's all about being more progressive than being not progressive.

36:01And it's, it's more complicated than that. It's also, I think, more complicated than being just like, who's a fighter. Like you definitely wouldn't want to be a fighter. Like not being a fighter is bad. Like there aren't a lot of what, there aren't a lot of people waving the white flag who are winning these primaries or in elections in general. But it just – I always find myself struggling with this because it's the conversation is more complicated and dynamic than the terms in which we generally try to have the talk about it and sort of how voters are about it. Because when people say moderate, liberal, progressive, there's like an umbrella over all the issues.

36:37And in reality, it's issue by issue for different voters and in different parts of the country and in different races, right? And these aren't moderates who are losing, with the exception of Goldman against Lander. And Goldman, particularly the issue where Goldman was most moderate was Israel. But Espyat, not a moderate. Not a moderate. To get, not a moderate. No. But been there a while. Yes. There's a generational element to this too. Coming attractions, you see AOC endorsed Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. So there's the Michigan primary, where obviously the Senate race is the marquee race. I believe there's also like a house race there as well.

37:14Sri Thanedar is a Democratic congressman there who's facing a primary challenge. There's a few more. Do you have any? Do you know who the other is? Yeah, there's Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Oh, yeah. Against Elijah Manley and apparently Luther Campbell, formerly of Two Live Crew, which I did not realize until I read the New York Times story of it. Yes. She is not. She is running in a district that's not hers because it was redrawn. So it's a little bit more like the Al Green and Julie Johnson losses earlier this cycle. Yeah. Stephen Lynch in Massachusetts. Stephen Lynch in Massachusetts. Been there forever.

37:45Ed Markey in Massachusetts. John Larson in Connecticut. Wesley Bell, who beat Cori Bush two years ago. This is not a generational one. This is more of a moderate progressive one. But Cori Bush is now – and he won in large part because of APEC spending in that race. He was their candidate. And so Cori Bush is now running for her seat again. That's one in Missouri, which comes up in August, I believe. Yeah. So there is plenty of time for panic and overly hot takes and un-nuanced takes about all of these things going forward. Can't wait.

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41:52did you see steve bannon's comments in playbook this morning i i the ai steve bannon would have said that like i i could have told you exactly what that's gonna be he basically um said that republicans uh ignore or mock uh the election of of dsa candidates and progressive candidates at their peril he said quote they campaign as anti-establishment very smartly they're not really even campaigning on Trump. He gets a mention, but they're very much like the Tea Party, like old Breitbart. They're going against the Democratic establishment. The reason we have problems is not Trump. It's the people that should be stopping Trump are actually co-opted by him.

42:26It's very sophisticated and it clearly resonates. What do you think about that? I think, I mean, it's like an overly facile, self-serving. I mean, basically what he's saying is, look how smart these people are. They're doing exactly what I did 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And he's like a populist, you know? Yeah. I mean, sort of. Yeah. Well, no, I think with Bannon, he's a populist in all the wrong ways, in all the xenophobic, terrible ways. But he's also a genuine populist on economic stuff. He has always pushed Trump to actually do populist economic shit, and then Trump has never done it in two terms.

43:05I think he genuinely believes that populism is the best politics for the Republican Party. That I agree with, which is why he has been so skeptical of big tech. I mean, he takes a lot of money from billionaires for a populist, but his argument was for a populist, for MAGA to be a populist working class movement. And he sees Democrats trying to do something similar and being willing to take on their own in order to do it. So I think it's notable. On the subject of DSA momentum, I don't know if you saw Axios had a report on Wednesday that Kamala Harris has quietly been reaching out to Zoran Mamdani, AOC, and the leaders of the uncommitted movement, indicating that she's making plans potentially for a 2028 run and perhaps another ideological reinvention.

43:53What did you think about that? So we are getting more and more evidence that Kamala Harris is seriously thinking about running. If you'd asked me six months ago, I would have bet a fair amount of money that she was not going to run. But she keeps doing things that suggest she's at least seriously thinking about it. You and I have heard lots of rumors of her talking to all kinds of different people in the party. I think if she is running and is being smart about it, there is no path for her to the nomination that does not involve a massive pivot away from Biden's Israel and Gaza policy. And so having some conversations about how you would do that and how that would be received by people in the community, particularly when she clearly did not engage with that community enough to fully understand the power of the issue in 2024 is what you would be doing.

44:43Will that work? Will she be able to pull it off? That was going to be my next question. How much credibility do you think she gets? I think it would depend on how she delivers it and how – if she were to do it, she cannot be – she cannot hedge her words. She cannot worry about Joe Biden's reaction to her words. She cannot worry about whether she's going to anger people in the national security world or the Biden national security team. She has to do what, you know, what people around her were saying during the campaign was like this legitimate, very real empathy for the Palestinians and anger at the Israelis that she was never willing to say out loud on the campaign and made a bunch of, I think, really tactical mistakes.

45:26Like in the end, the idea that you couldn't give one slot at the convention to a speaker who would talk about what was going on in Gaza is a just seems so crazy now in hindsight. So it would have to be for her to pull it off. It would have to be just as I mean, it has to be with a level of authenticity and visceral emotion and legitimate anger at what happened before. and that you could not miss it, but you can't focus group it. You can't hem your words. You can't worry about Joe Biden. I also think two other things. You have to own some responsibility around that. 100%. Like it has to be like, and not, well, I was vice president now, so I wasn't supposed to say anything.

46:10Like a genuine, like I was wrong or I made a mistake or I came to this too late. Like, and I think that it, like she has to demonstrate that she actually cares about this and it's actually angered her and she's actually regretful for how it was handled and not that she's doing all the things she needs to do to check the boxes to become the democratic nominee that the democratic electorate wants right now which is like always my concern about her you know it's like i want to i want to know if kamala harris wants to run again why she wants to run again and why she wants to be president and you can already tell like since she since she lost since the campaign she's like trying out a little like well I'm sort of an outsider I've always been an outsider and it's it's like yeah there's anti-establishment fervor right now I'm gonna jump on that train that looks good like and I'm not saying that this is exactly what she believes because I don't know um but it it could very easily come across like that um and my advice to her would be what do you actually want to run for president?

47:16What do you really believe? What's really angering you about the last four years? Talk about that. And if people, you know, if people believe that and people find that persuasive, then you'll be the nominee. And if not, they won't. But like, you just don't don't look at the the Democratic electorate as a I got to get all the pieces together. And this is what I have to say and do. And if I press all the right buttons, then suddenly I'll get the nomination. You know, I just that's and I that's goes for any candidate for sure. But I think she has a particular challenge there. Can I tell you something I think you're going to find perhaps very disturbing and potentially exciting?

47:54If we follow by the previous the calendars of the previous cycles, one year from right about now will be the first Democratic primary debate. Oh, it's getting nauseous. Yeah, it usually happens in the summer of the year prior to the election. It's going to be so bad. I'm just telling you. I feel like the opening skirmishes. We'll be with that attitude. The opening skirmishes of the great democratic war of 2028 have already begun. And so far, they haven't been going well. I'm still like, we have just, this is like the fucking tip of the iceberg. It is going to get so, it's going to make 2020 look like a fucking field day.

48:34I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure. I'm not saying it's going to be great. I'm not saying be points of difference in discussion and debate. And those will be painful because a lot of times people agree on so much that you really are slicing the salami so thin to get to that difference. I mean, as it was with the Obama, other than the Iraq war on all the issues with Obama and Clinton, like we agreed on a lot of stuff. And so like policy stuff, like approach to politics was very different, but on policy stuff, you know, you're fighting over the individual mandate was the main point of dispute.

49:07Point to Hillary on that one. Yes. And so we'll see. We won't have to talk about this now. You have a plan to catch. I have a lot to say about the poll. So we'll keep going. We'll keep going. Speaking of the fall elections, we are now just four months out from these midterm elections. Forget about the primary debates. And our America 250 gift, Dan, was a full round of Times-Siena Senate polls that were released Wednesday morning, which showed Democrats effectively tied, but definitely not ahead, in the effort to flip Republican-held Senate seats. In Alaska, they have Mary Peltola just two points behind Dan Sullivan.

49:42In Ohio, Sherrod Brown is down three to John Husted. In Iowa, Josh Turek is two behind Ashley Hinson. In their polls of Maine and Texas, released over the last few days, they have Graham Plattner up two points on Susan Collins and James Tallarico and Ken Paxton tied. The only clear leader is Democrat Roy Cooper in North Carolina. They have him up seven on Michael Watley. There were also new Fox News polls out this week that have Plattner down three to Susan Collins and Turek up four on Hinson in Iowa. Any big picture thoughts before we get into some of the specific races? These polls are a somewhat painful reality check of just how tough the Senate map is.

50:23When you dig into these, as everyone knows, we got to win Maine. We have to win North Carolina. We have to win two of Alaska, Texas, Iowa, Ohio. These are very Republican states. Trump won those four by at least double digits. When you look on the insides of the polls, majorities in all those states think the Democratic party is too far to the left. This is a group of people. We think about how much - 53%. 53 % too far to the left, 8 % too far to the right, 35 % neither. Yeah, not great. You like we talk about how angry people are at Trump. His approval rating in these states is all pretty good, like low 40s in most cases in the they Republicans lead the generic ballot in all these states by at least six points.

51:07They want Republican control of Senate by at least six points. Except in Maine. Except in Maine. Let's put Maine aside in North Carolina. Yeah, let's put. Yeah, that's right. Which is we should talk about that because Roy Cooper is doing well. But the generic ballot in North Carolina is also D plus six, I believe, which is crazy. North Carolina is performing like a pretty democratic state in this environment. It's D plus six. They want Democrats to control the Senate. It is. I mean, people are talking a lot about how great Ward Cooper is doing. He's doing great. He's a great candidate. But he's actually only overperforming the generic ballot by one point.

51:37Yes. And a lot of these candidates in the more Republican states are overperforming the generic ballot by three to eight points in some cases. you know and so it's it's the point is we have a shot in all of these races and that is something that you could not have said six to eight months ago but that it is very hard and it's also other than in texas republicans have actually nominated fine candidates ashley hinson john hugh said are generic republicans and dan sullivan's like a maybe a little bit worse than generic republican but basically a generic republican we have great candidates but is it going to be enough so this is what I was getting at a little earlier is my take, my overall take on these, these polls.

52:20Um, and again, New York times polls aren't perfect, but they are as close to perfect as we have. Um, you know, they were off again in 2024, but like, again, the purpose of a poll is not to nail the exact result. I know that's, that might sound shocking, but it's true. Um, it, it gets you within the ballpark and in terms of within the ballpark, no one does it better than the New York times, which is why we take these seriously and dig in on them. Um, so my take overall, if you set all the candidates aside, we have done a great job persuading people, even people in red states, that Donald Trump is doing a terrible job as president.

52:52I know you said like 43, it's 43%. That's not a great approval rating in red states. Like I would have, you know, that's pretty bad. And I know now we're getting used to because some of these national polls have them in like the high 30s. We're getting used to that. But like for any 43 is bad. It's enough to lose, right? if he was running in those states. We have not done a good job persuading people that the Republicans in Congress are the primary reason that Trump has been able to make their lives worse. That's my larger takeaway because you would think that the Republican, I mean, and the generic ballot, right?

53:25Like if you take the candidates out of it, because people want to talk about like, this candidate's more strong, this one's weaker. And if you take all the candidates out of it, you just look at, you know, who do you want to control Congress? You ask that question to the voters, which they did. The generic ballot is just very positive for Republicans in most of these red states, even as Donald Trump's approval rating in those same states is well under 50%. And that's what I, why do you think that is? Because people don't like Democrats. Like these, all these candidates are doing great. They are outperforming.

54:00Except Plattner. Well, I want to, all the candidates in the four red states. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's do that. Roy Cooper, Plattner aside. Okay, great. We're only talking about these for now. Yeah. And I'd actually put Texas aside in a little bit here, but in Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio. Yeah, that's a good model. That's a good group for talking about this. These are very Republican states. In Iowa and Ohio, the hardest part here is where Trump has lost ground is mostly with younger voters and Latino voters. And these are very white, very old states. They are whiter than the national average. They are older than the national average.

54:39And so there's just less the voters who are leaving Trump and coming to our side. There's just fewer of them. And it's a more static electorate. Alaska is more confusing. Alaska is not actually a white state, but it is not. But it obviously has a very low Latino and black population as a native population, which just is a little bit different. Texas is interesting because Texas is a majority minority state and has a huge Latino vote, which is why Tallarico is tied in that race. Though I was surprised in Texas that the generic ballot is still Republican plus six if most of the gains are younger voters and Latino voters because Texas has plenty of both of those.

55:20Yeah. I mean, it's six in a state that Trump won by 13. Oh, OK. OK. I forgot that he won by that much. Yeah. In every one of these states, Trump won by at least 11 points. Right. Right.

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57:00Let's stay on those three, Iowa, Alaska, Ohio. One thing on Alaska we should note is that Nate Cohn wrote like a separate thing on why the methodology and the Alaska sample might be a little weird and different. And we're not going to nerd out on that. But the upside is the Alaska results could be actually better than it appears here. Iowa and Ohio, I think, more fit the issue with it's just white voters everywhere. But I do think what's notable is we have all of our candidates in those states, like you said, are outrunning the generic ballot. So the Democrats are viewed, the Democratic candidates are viewed as less extreme than the national party, and they're more liked than average.

57:43And the Republican candidates in those states, though, are also have a higher favorability rating than average. So I do think in those three states, especially. So it's Dan Sullivan, John Husted and Ashley Hinson, who's also in Congress. She's not a senator, but she's a rep. I think like there's a lot of work to be done on pinning the last couple of years of Donald Trump on those three incumbents who are in Washington. We are in an anti-establishment, anti-incumbent mood. Those people have been voting for Trump and voting for and helping Trump 100 percent, not stopping him. So it feels like there's just a lot of work to be done there.

58:20Is that what you agree? Yeah, I would say that. It's tricky because what are you moving in doing that? The question is interesting. You're trying to find in those states, and according to this polls, there are a bunch of Trump disapprovers, don't like Donald Trump, who are nonetheless inclined to vote for a Republican candidate for Senate. And I think those are the people that you want to get. Yeah, I agree with that. The thing that is, the generic ballot is interesting in this race, in these races. The question that's more interesting, which kind of lines up with the generic ballot, but is who do you want to control the Senate?

58:57Right. And Republicans have a big advantage on that. It's basically akin to the generic ballot. It's 11 in Alaska. They didn't ask the generic ballot question in Alaska because there's only one member of Congress, so they just asked about that race. And that's not, I think, immediately transferable to the political environment because it's a known quantity in Nick Begich there. But that is hard. They're going to make the race be about – a vote for Mary Paltola is a vote to make Chuck Schumer and a bunch of DSA people or whatever in charge of the Senate. And so you need 11 % of them to say, no, we'll take Mary Paltola anyway.

59:30That's hard. I think Ohio is indicative of the larger challenge here, which is Sherrod Brown has a plus eight favorable rating in a state that Trump won by 11. A majority of Ohioans do not think that Sherrod Brown is too far to the left. Although a majority of Ohioans think that the Democratic Party is too far to the left. If the goal is to not be a typical Democrat, Sherrod Brown has fucking nailed it. Yep. He has a relationship with the voters. They like him. They think he's different than the Democrats. They hate. And he hasn't moderated his views on anything, by the way. No. Like he was just at our house doing a fundraiser a couple of weeks ago, and he sounds exactly the same as he has for the last several decades.

1:00:13Well, now he's down four. Great. Thanks for telling everyone that. But what's interesting is if you compare the results of this poll to the exit poll of the Ohio Senate race in 2024, he is doing exactly the same as he was in that race. exactly his percentage of the white non-college vote which is a majority of the basically half the vote in ohio is exactly the same and he's doing no better than kamala harris did essentially nationally with that but he's getting 36 percent what do we do about that i mean it's this is this is why ohio is such a hard fucking state now can he convince some like there are places where he can make gains he can make gains with black voters and that's so you can jack up black turnout.

1:00:57He can do better with younger. Like there are places to get there, but this is why he's down three. And this is why these States are so hard because even though he is well-liked, he is not extreme people. He is not getting more votes than he did four years ago, two years ago. That's the hard part about running Sherrod Brown two years later. You're going to need some people who voted for Houston to either stay home or voted for Bernie Moreno over Sherrod Brown to either change their vote or stay home. And that's not, that's not super easy. He was the differences. is, and this is one of the reasons these polls sort of brought me back down to earth in a serious way, is two years ago he was running in a presidential electorate, which was obviously going to be harder for a Democrat in a state like Ohio.

1:01:35I guess I assumed that a midterm electorate would be better for Democrats than it is in these polls. And I always thought that Sherrod's chance, and I still do, that Sherrod's chance to win this time versus last time is the fact that he's just going to be running in a different electorate where there's fewer non-college educated white voters who turn out to vote in the midterm than there are in a presidential. Well, the problem is Ohio is an older white non-college turnout state, and those people vote at a higher rate. And as Nate Cohen pointed out in his analysis of the polls, a lot of the voters who have left Trump don't vote in midterms.

1:02:10Right. And that is going to be more true in a state like Ohio, which is just a - That's interesting. Ohio is just this state that because this seems crazy to people we've only been watching politics for the last couple of presidential elections. But prior to that, it was the election, the state that decided the presidency in basically every election. And it has been registered and organized within an inch of its life. And one reason why it was felt hard for Obama was we always felt like we could do best in states that had large, unregistered populations, potential Democrats. North Carolina, Florida.

1:02:43That was a dream about Texas over the years. And Ohio just had, there were no new votes to get. Yeah. Young people were leaving. And so it's it is a it's a hard it's a hard state. Can he still win it? Absolutely. He can. But I think it just speaks to how like why this is hard. It's doable. It's doable in all these states. But these are hard states. And by the way, it's why North Carolina and Texas are states that not just this cycle, but many cycles into the future, Democrats just have to win at some point. Because you don't run into the same older white voters and no new voters issue in those states because so many people have been moving to them over the last decade.

1:03:27They're becoming more diverse, becoming younger. And so on paper, they should be states that Democrats have a better chance in than places like Ohio and Iowa long term, long term. I am interested in why the generic ballot in North Carolina is so good. Well, it is. Think about it this way. It's a state that Trump won by two points, I think. I think two points. Yeah, it was very close. He barely only won it by less than a point in 2020. And so if you think the generic ballot is plus seven or eight nationally, then it kind of gets you to a plus six. Yeah. Yeah. And so there's and that's Roy Cooper.

1:04:04There is just, you know, he's just trucking through and not really getting any national attention. And the race is kind of quiet and it's benefiting him. That's it's probably a state where getting attention is a bad thing. Well, he doesn't need attention because he has high name ID and voters like him. Right. Right. So he does not need to be doing TikTok dances. And then before we get to Maine, because Texas is sort of the opposite issue, which is I do think in Texas, obviously, James Talleyrand is a strong candidate. We've talked about that a lot. And there's been a shift in the ballot, the generic ballot in Texas.

1:04:35But I think it's fair to say that Ken Paxton as the candidate and his his problems and issues are hurting him in these polls. Yes. People. It's a little bit like Maine. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's right. It's the opposite. It's absolutely hurting. What is interesting is I find this impossible to believe, and it may be the factory that ends linear political television advertising forever, which is the Texas primary was the most expensive primary in history. Ungodly amounts of money were spent by John Cornyn and Cornyn super PACs. Most of that money was spent by the Cornyn side telling people about what a corrupt dickhead Ken Paxton is.

1:05:14And only 38 % of voters. Dude, that was poor hearing a lot about it. And yet when you go to Maine, most voters have heard about Graham Plattner stuff. Nearly nine in 10 voters have heard about Graham Plattner stuff. Now, part of this is Maine is a smaller state, a much smaller state. And I think it's word travels fast there and people know. And I think that, you know, there's opportunities there as well for Plattner. But I think it does say something about the sort of the gap between when there's a right-wing boogeyman and a left-wing boogeyman. Yeah, but it is. The thing is that the entire Republican Party infrastructure was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to tell people this about Ken Paxton, and people still haven't heard it.

1:05:56So maybe they were doing it in the wrong way. I think you're right. I think it's TV stuff. And online, we weren't talking about all of Ken Paxton's problems until it was time to vote. So it just didn't break through in the last year the way that Graham Plattner stuff broke through. Let's talk about Maine. So Democratic Party machinery is getting behind Plattner, grudgingly or otherwise. The Senate focused PAC majority forward. Is that what they're first attack at on Susan Collins? Let's take a look and then we'll talk about the polling there. 30 years living the Washington, D.C. lifestyle changes people.

1:06:32Getting rich from insider trading should be illegal. But Susan Collins doesn't think so. Susan Collins is trying to keep it so senators can get rich playing the stock market. They're making millions of dollars. While we can't even afford groceries and gas. We need to tell Susan Collins to stop the congressional stock trading. Okay, what do you think of that ad? What do you think of that message? And then your take on the polling in Maine. I want you to do an Oscar-style music. play me off the stage if you have to go catch a flight because I honestly could talk about all the honestly all these polls for five straight hours I could do a podcast on every one of the polls I think I'm good it is about about an hour to LAX I should make it okay all right just don't let me miss your flight uh because I will never hear the end of it from your wife so um and she will know now yes yes she will know um I don't think she listens to this podcast that's true What am I talking about?

1:07:26Yeah. My wife might tell her that's the problem. That is true. So the logic of that ad, because it's always like you look at this ad and say, this ad sucks or the message strategy of this ad is bad. And then you remember, they're very smart people with a ton of data that you and I don't have who make these decisions. So I imagine the strategy of this ad is to say, you have a lot of people who voted for Susan Collins in 2020 and in previous elections. Like Susan Collins overperformed. She won by nine when Biden was winning Maine by almost nine. So like a 17, 18 point overperformance. This is a stunning stat.

1:07:57In 2008, she won by 23 points when Obama was winning Maine by 17. Wow. She overperformed by 40 points. Oh, my God. So you've got a lot of people who voted for Susan Collins. So one way to do that is that you want to create a permission structure to them to say, I did this thing before. She's changed. So that's the argument. But if you look at the New York Times poll, and it's one poll, and it's a public poll, that seems like a bad strategy. because in this poll, two thirds of voters think that Susan Collins has good character and morals. So it seems hard you're going to convince, even a lot of people are voting for Grant Plattner think Susan Collins is a good person.

1:08:31And so it seems hard that you're going to convince them all of a sudden that she is corrupt. And it seems to me your better argument is you look at the fact that by a margin of, I think, 12 points, I'm just left on my head, Democrats, people in Maine want the Democrats to control the Senate. And so there should never be an ad run that is not Susan Collins standing in the Oval Office holding that MAGA hat. Yeah, that's probably the more potent argument, right? Yeah. The MAGA hat. Also, I think that's why, and you see Plattner was doing this in his primary night speech and elsewhere. The Brett Kavanaugh vote feels like a potent attack on her because it is a place where she was basically, you know, I'm doing what Trump wants me to do and it's going to be fine and then it's not fine.

1:09:19And that's probably an easier argument than, oh, this person that you think has brought home federal money to the state and has good character is actually a crook. In the poll, 57 % of independents and the majority of all Mainers, which I believe is the appropriate term, think that Susan Collins would be too supportive of Donald Trump. Yeah. There is a world for the Plattner campaign that existed a year ago with none of these revelations, nothing has happened, where it's like we are running a campaign to change American politics and reshape the coalitions. This poll suggests that those days are over.

1:09:56Although there are some places where Plattner is doing better than Sarah Gideon did, which is why he's winning and she lost by nine points. And also why comparing this poll to the 2020 polls of where Sarah Gideon was at this point is not a great idea since those polls were all wrong. Yeah, that drives me insane. Even Nate Cohn would say that poll was very, very wrong. Of course. The best thing you compare it to is the 2020 exit polls because they actually exit polled this race in 2020. and Graham Platt, if you look at that, Graham Plattner is doing exactly one point better than Sarah Gideon did with white working class voters, which in Maine, where 98 % of the voters are white, I believe, is just working class voters.

1:10:37So, and basically the same number that Kamala Harris did in 2024 with working class white voters, according to Catalyst data. Where he is doing better, which is why he is winning and Sarah Gideon was losing by a lot, is he's doing much better with young voters. and he's doing better with men. Yeah. The reason why he's not up by more is pretty simple. Susan Collins is getting 10 % of Kamala Harris voters. Although Plattner, to his credit, is getting 4%. Older white women, which is exactly what Ron Bramstein has been saying and said on this pod that his biggest concern is. I know we all want it.

1:11:09I will stipulate that Graham Plattner is being weighed down in some way, shape, or form by the things that have come out. That is definitely true. He is underperforming. All these other Democrats are overperforming the generic ballot. he's underperforming it by eight points i think yeah because it's that's right it's 11 right it's 11 so nine points he's nine underperforming nine points that is significant now the idea that we were going to beat susan collins by 10 points or even five points i think probably was fanciful because there's definitely some grand plan underperformance there is no question i am not disputing it there's definitely susan collins over performance too well yeah and also because his approval is 45-50, which isn't great, but is not horrible, right?

1:11:50You can win at 45 % approval, which is just look at Donald Trump. And hers is 48-51. Hers was much, I was less surprised. Actually, I was surprised by both of them. I thought that his favorability might be worse after everything. And then I thought hers would, but I thought hers would be worse. 48-51, this seems quite good. If you're an incumbent in an anti-incumbent wave and you've been there forever and you're as old as Susan Collins. That surprised me. There is this misreading of the polls where they ask people not to compare Plattner and Collins on characters and morals. They just ask them if having good characters or good morals to describe them.

1:12:28So Susan Collins has these incredible numbers in the 60s on character and morals. And Plattner seems like his numbers are much lower, but they're still in the mid-40s. So he's getting 48 % of the vote. So there's like 4 % of people who are voting for – who don't think Plattner necessarily has great character or morals and are voting for him anyway. There are 18 % of people in some cases who think that Susan Collins is a good person are voting against her anyway. Yeah. I will also say that both Susan Collins and Graham Plattner are more popular in this poll than Janet Mills. Yeah. This is the other takeaway.

1:13:03way. Like, is it possible that like a John Baldacci or a Hannah Pingree, if they had run as a generic Democrat, would be doing better than Graham Plattner? Probably. Maybe. Maybe even probably. Maybe even probably. They chose not to. They chose not to. In some cases, some of these candidates were encouraged not to by Chuck Schumer, according to some reports. But the idea that this poll has a fair amount of evidence that Janet Mills would be doing worse than Graham Plattner. Certainly not better than Grant Plattner. And the bigger thing is not just her favorability rating, because that's somewhat dragged down by Plattner people who don't like her.

1:13:36The bigger issue is that more than eight in 10 main voters think the main economy is bad. I know. Those numbers. And when the economy is the number one issue in the election, she actually would be someone who was being like, it would be as much a referendum on her as opposed to a referendum on the Trump economy. And so that would be a very, very tough order. Yeah. No, I think, look, clearly all of the revelations about Plattner have heard him and he has a lot of work to do. I don't think anything in this poll shows that what's happened is fatal. I'm very concerned if other revelations come out.

1:14:13Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, for sure. I do think if these because then some people will argue, well, the Republicans haven't even spent all their money yet, making sure that everyone knows about everything that's come out already on that. I would say, like most of the voters in this poll, what, 80 percent have heard about his problems and his issues. So, like, I don't know that there's much more education to do on that front. I think what what their hope has to be is that there's more stuff coming out on the Republican side that they can that they can use. The thing that I worry more than the character and stuff and the moral stuff is that Plattner is seen as more extreme than Susan Collins.

1:14:52Yeah. And that's where I think – that's the ads I think are more – would be more concerning. Susan Collins very much people do not think she's extreme. Right. Yeah. And it's going to be – that's not pushing on an open door on that. It is – it's much easier to say like, oh, well, she's just – just look at the record. She goes along with Trump and you don't like Trump. There you go. Just a vote for Susan Collins is a vote for Donald Trump's Senate. A vote for Susan Collins is a vote to confirm another Trump Supreme Court justice. A vote for Susan Collins is Trump. Trump. Just it's like it's not that complicated.

1:15:20It should just be everything. And like, do not overthink this, people. Yeah. Like you need a bunch of people who want the Democrats to control the Senate to vote for Grant Plattner. If you do that, you will win. Yep. All right. That's our show for today. Everyone have a happy fourth and a great holiday weekend. Tommy and Lovett will be back with a new show on Tuesday. and I'll be back a week from Tuesday. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone. Have a great fourth. Pods of America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safaris with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill.

1:15:50Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pellaviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.