Thank you all for coming. We are honored to have two experts in political science and polling as my guests and we're going to talk about the upcoming elections. So, let me introduce them first. So, Dave Brady is the has been the the Bowen and Janice McCoy professor here at the GSB in political science. He's a Davies family senior fellow at the Hooer Institution. He was the chair of public policy at the GSB. He was a political science professor at Stanford. He was actually chairman before that
of the political science department at Rice University. And before that, he was chairman of the political science department at the University of Houston. He's the author of eight books and over a 100 academic papers. And just in the spirit of shamelessness, I want to promote his latest book because I just got it called From Dominance to Parody. And I figure you can take a loan out the bank to buy it. I figure the people that are here today are political junkies. So you I I actually
have read this and it's fantastic. What it basically explains is that the Democrats dominated American politics and both houses of Congress for basically 50 years from 1932 till the Reagan election in 1980. And then there was a realignment in 1980, but it was only a partial realignment. And that began with the Reagan revolution in 1980. And then since 1994, since N. Gingriert and the Republicans, a contract with America, took over the House. We've basically been in a period of parody and it's gone back and forth
and back and forth ever since. And it's sort of a perfect lead into today because both parties continue to struggle and what we're going to talk about. There's at least eight Senate races right now that are that are that he talked about. But here's the book from Donus to Parody. It's going to be a great Christmas present for all your friends. Phil Okay. >> Yeah. Right there. >> On the other side, >> right here. very like a beautiful uncle. >> It'll fit in your rare book
collection. >> Okay. Um on my right is the great Doug Rivers who is a Ward Krabs family professor of political science at Stanford and also a senior fellow at a river institution across the street. Importantly, and this is important, he is also the president and and CEO of Yuggov Polytrics. Now, Yuggov, for those of you following along at home, you know Yugob does all of the polling for the economist, all the polling for CBS News. And so, Doug is a a very wellestablished polling expert. Before
coming to Stanford, he taught at UCLA, at Caltech, and at the Stanford of the East, Harvard, from which he received his PhD. So, uh, as Ken said, Dave and Doug are both highly, highly decorated political scientists. They've actually run a polling project over at the Hoover Institution where we sort of track the intention of the voters and and try to define what might be the future of both parties. And so we're delighted to have them here. So issue one, as I used to say on the
Mofflin Group, uh the mood of the electorate, Doug, let's start with just what is the electorate feeling today? One one big thing everybody has always tracked and polling right track, wrong track. Is country on the right track or the wrong track? Where are we on right track wrong pack and what does that pretend for the party of the president of the United States in this election? >> Yeah, so believe it or not, we've been on the wrong track for 25 years. The um but the numbers
have worsened over the last year quite a bit. Um it's a mistake to think that the whole electric movie with one single child. We have uh the uh MAGA base about 20 more% of the elector uh they thought the end of um civilization was occurring under the Biden administration. Trump got in and they immediately became very positive 95%. They brought about 10 points over the last year. Um then you have the non- mega Republican I don't know 10 low teens in terms of size. Um that
group started less positive and they dropped about 10 points over the last year and they're at about on the order of 5050 at this point. Um on the other end they're Democrats. Uh they thought that things were going great under Biden. Trump gets in. They think things are awful. Um they started at, you know, 95% thinking things were off on the wrong track, 5% on the right track. Uh they've now gone to 99% countries on the wrong track. Um doesn't really make any difference uh what
happens. The Maggie group and the core democratic group are going to always believe opposite some of the squirrel. Then there's this big group in between which are independents. Um and that's why our lockings are close. Uh they swing a bit one way or the other. Um they're currently in about uh 25%. I think the country is headed in the right direction. Again, about 10 points worse than they were uh a year ago. Um and that's the group that is really moving in this light. >> Yeah.
two a couple phenomenon jump out from Doug's answer right there. Um, one is that we live in a world now where people's view of reality is even if it's unrelated to politics is actually determined by their political affiliation, right? So people think the economy is good if there's a Democrat president and uh that person's in office or vice versa. Republicans think it's bad and then Republicans president people say the economy is good whether it's good or bad just because of partisan affiliation. And then the other
thing is both that group of non-MAGA, let's call them moderate Republicans and independents that Trump did capture in 2024 are moving away from him fast. So let's talk let's turn to Trump and Trump's approval. So Dave, um let's talk about the economy. Obviously um I'm I think most people who work in politics are believe in the old James Carville maxim. It's the economy stupid. Um Trump's seriously underwater on the economy. How bad is it? Yeah, unless you went to a Trump rally, he's he's in trouble
on the economy. Um the approval overall uh on the economy is uh 77% opposed on inflation. It's really it's worse on inflation. Um he that's important for him because the re major reason on my view he got elected in uh 2024 was uh the inflation issue plus plus the immigration issue. But the immigration issue is gone also, he's a negative on that. He's only he's only negative on that about 15 points. But on some of these other on the economy, he's in deep in the hole.
And when you ask Americans what the most important issues are, the first one's inflation, second one's economy, third one's healthcare. And all three of those issues, they believe the Democrats are better capable of uh of dealing with it. So, let's double click a little bit on inflation because I'll take you back to the 2024 election, the polling that Doug and Dave did um in that that's obviously the president and Trump won. And if you look at that, first of all, if you look at what issues
people cared about today's point, if you said if people said abortion was the number one issue, Kamla won that group 65 to 30, right? But that was only 6.8% of the electorate and it was only 4% of independents. If you said if you ask people people who responded uh the future of democracy is the most important issue colo on that group 90-6 right um but that was only 9.6% of all voters and only 8 7.8% 8% of independents. Among people who said inflation was the number
one issue, Trump won them 64- 26. 64 to 26. So he won by 38 points. And that group was the biggest group. More voters thought inflation was number one than any other issue. That group was 25% of all voters and 22% of independents. Now, if you disagregate where Trump is on inflation today from from the Yuggov polling, among Democrats, approved, disapprove of the job Trump is doing on inflation, three approved, 96 disapproved. No surprise. Among Republicans, 67 approved, 30 disapproved. So, not so great given, you
know, the partisan affiliations we have should drive them. But here's the number that is shocker. independence 18 approve 80 disapprove. So Trump is minus 62 on inflation with independence. Remember he won independence in the 2024 election by like seven points in something like that. >> Um so um obviously the president is those numbers are really troubling and we'll get to what it means for the house one. Oh okay. Go ahead. Well, that's particularly important among Hispanic voters because Hispanic voters, Trump did very well among them.
The two issues being uh depending upon uh what your ethnicity was uh immigration and the second one was inflation. And on those two on those on those two sets of issues, it's totally flipped. And that Hispanic vote is now about 40 35 to 40 points Democrat as opposed to where they were in um 2024. So, I want to talk for a second before we dive into the House and Senate about a third issue, issue three, which I would call issue selection. In my view, politics is
all about issue selection. What do you say you're going to do? What do you say you're going to work on? What are you trying to move? And so, maybe I'll start with a question for Doug. Doug, were there any voters out there who elected Trump in 2024 to start a fight with Canada? >> Um, no. door a war with Iran in order to build a ballroom or an arch. >> Um, you know, he did anyone paying attention knew the Trump like terrorists. The voters, however, uh,
most of whom paid no attention to that. Uh, so Trump gets in he puts on the uh, the tariffs and they're immediately unpopular. So between the um the tariffs uh and the blur in Iran, these are two things that people think are causing prices to rise. Um and those are both big negatives. >> Exactly. They're correlated with inflation. But just to go back, you're right. If you you can pull up a tape when you go to Trump on Oprah Winfrey show in the 1980s saying how
wonderful tariffs were. So he actually is always believed in them. Um, but correct me if I'm wrong, but in the 24th cycle, Doug, I think was sampling. What do people think of tariffs? And there you really couldn't get a discernable view because 90% of the sample had no idea what a tariff was. >> Even worse, we forgot to ask about tariffs for the most part. So, I went back to our historical data like Trump. Uh, we asked how he was handling foreign trade, but we never
actually used the word narrow. >> But now you've handled it. And like you say, consumers, I mean, don't underestimate the voters. They know it raises their prices. People in industrial manufacturing know it raises the prices of components. Do you have numbers on tariffs? >> Yeah, the tariff supports around 25%. He's underwater by 30 points. >> 30 on tariffs. And then when you get specifically to Canada, we'll talk about some of these races, but you know, there are huge trading relationships in Maine and in New Hampshire
and in Minnesota and in Montana and other states along the northern rim of the United States and more broadly in the country. But um that and that's having an effect and you know taking over Greenland, you know, whatever. Okay. Um how about on the war? How about on the war the war in Iran? Uh where is Trump in terms of approval of the war at this point? Um, so, um, the statistic I wrote down before we got there was, um, do you think it was a
mistake to go to war with Iran? And, uh, was it the right decision or wrong decision? Right now, it's, uh, 26% of the public thinks it was, uh, the right decision and 56% thinks it's the wrong decision. Um it's even more if you look among Republicans um my own handing there. Um among Republicans um it's um 60% think it's the right decision and 40% think it's a wrong decision. Trump voters when 40% of your voters one of the key things you're talking about and doing it's
wrong then they're deeply under the water >> and then I think not only are they unpopular but to the point you made earlier they feed right into the narrative of not only not fixing inflation but actually making it worse and that in most of the Democratic campaigns that's the narrative is like tariffs and the war are making gas prices higher in the case of the war they're making your consumer goods pricey in case of tariffs. >> Well, the whole Trump strategy such as it is is
a big middle finger to people who care about inflation. Uh you know that uh he had very good uh ratings on the first Trump administration. Uh even a year ago um he was uh you know plus 10 on inflation. Um, and uh, you know, now he's minus 25 or so. >> You can always I remember when President Bush would see somebody giving him the middle finger when they're starting by, he'd say, "Hey, look, they're saying we're number one." >> No. Um, >> and on issue selection,
you didn't even mention some other things, but I'd like to see if you tested it. >> Ripping down the Kennedy Center because they wouldn't put your name on it, right? Retribution against your >> Have you tested the Kennedy Center? Yes, we have. Uh, in my whole 25 years of doing this, I've never had anything that pulled worse. Uh, 6% of the public is in favor of tearing down the account assembly. >> What? >> Um, how about having your kids get rich through questionable means? >> Um,
yes, corruption issue, myself. >> Corruption was not working for a while like the democracy issues. The Democratic base was big on them. Um, but I think one of the things that's happened in the midterm, the campaigning where Democrats have learned how to sort of rap it into Trump is thinking about himself and not you, >> right? >> And we haven't even talked about attacking Norway because he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. All right. Um, what's interesting in my view about the issue selection issue is
that he has actually plenty to work with. He has things he could say that would be popular. For example, I mean even on the economy, people perceive the economy as you said is pretty bad, but you know GDP growth at 2.2% and unemployment rate 4.1%. But yet the consumer sentiment on the economy by the way is just almost touching its post World War II low, right? It's like 46. University Michigan survey which for context in 2000 was 112. So in terms of people's confidence about the
economy, >> so big chunks of that are Democrats immediately became very negative on the economy when Trump got in. Uh um the second is, you know, we are not at 9% inflation, but we are at 3 12%. >> And we're at 30% higher prices than, you know 2020. >> Yeah. And there's stuff out there that's easy to identify like gas sprays, more BP, so forth. Um, so I think they're getting some negatives on that. Um, you know, it's it's not so much that the economy is
terrible, it's that Trump won't acknowledge that there's any problem. Biden did this was a is a wrong. You don't don't believe your own eyes. Yeah, most of them do that. But it's interesting. I mean, if you're we talk about Republicans that are non-M maga but conservative, they would presumably be in favor of the reconciliation bill, the BBBA, where he avoided a $5 trillion tax cut and gave tax cut to most Americans. They don't even talk about that. They they don't talk about tax credits for education,
for homeschooling, and school choice. They don't, you know, and we'll turn to the border. I'm going to ask you about the border, but >> yeah, I hate to break it to you. all of the policy stuff that you do. Nobody cares. >> People don't pay attention. >> That don't exactly right. >> I was I was hoping someone was going to say that. >> Well, even on the border, it's interesting because people did care about the border. They did feel that u the number of people crossing
was excessive. I believe the data is you had about 2 million people a year, 1.8 million, let's say, crossing, and that's down to like 95,000 right now. So that changed. But I think he stepped in it in that issue because you look at polling on that, a majority of Americans believe we should have border security, but a majority also believe if someone's been here 10 years and is working and paying taxes and everything else, they should have a path to citizenship. And he's turned it into
kind of ripping people out of their homes and arresting people at truckers at inspection stations because they can't pass their scale requirements. >> That's exactly right. We we've been concentrating on Texas. Uh I was I live I was at Rice and a long time. five friends down there were on on the Texas question. Of those five seats, it's our guess that three of them are going to stay Democrat and maybe four of the five. And the reason is that the Mexican-American vote along the border was
heavily influenced by inflation and uh border crossing. Now the border crossing is switched because just as Bob said, now now you're not you're not keeping people from coming in. That's taken care of in some way. what you're doing is taking people out of communities and ripping them out and that is not popular. But on the inflation, uh, wherever Trump was in 2024, uh, Mexican-American vote along the border in those border counties where where the most of the districts were, uh, drawn uh, redrawn, what's happened there
is it's about 18% more of the Mexican-American vote says inflation is the most important issue. So, I don't see I don't see that working I don't see that working out very well for him. In contrast, the California five districts, four of those five are definitely going Democrat and the fifth one is up for grabs. >> You know, we'll talk about where we go from here later, but it seems to me that Trump is sort of the extreme example of one thing that's changed in American politics
really since the 2000 election, which is it used to be like when we were running in ' 88, it was like try to capture the middle, try to capture the suburbs. We like stayed right on taxes and defense and crime but like came to the middle to the left if you will on environment, education, childcare. And I think since that tie election, both parties were guilty of this of just trying to maximize their own turnout instead of broaden the coalition. But Trump hasn't even in my
view broaden the coalition with his within his own party. So I I took your data at the end of the 24 election and gave a speech to a bunch of European LPs and I I I pulled out the quote because it happens to be right. I said, "Hey, if Trump is the president of tariffs, mass deportations, and retribution instead of high growth, and safe streets, he'll he'll misread his mandate, and he'll pay a high price in the 2016 midterms." So, you can look it up. There
we were. Okay, let's turn to the House of Representatives, the US House. I think it's fair to say the House is always more of a water level election. In other words, where is the current president? That, you know, the individual members aren't as well known. Therefore, it swings a little bit where, you know, the popularity or lack thereof of the incumbent kind of drives it. It's a sort of referendum on the incumbent. Um, now everybody knows that historically at the first midterm after a president gets
elected, you know, the average incumbent president loses like 25 seats, right? And if they're actually 50% approval or more or sorry under 50% approval, the average is 35 seats that they lose. Now some people say Dave in American politics, well that was historic history and that was then. But these days there aren't very many swing seats because all the all the seats in the general election are safe because of redistricting, because of the big advantage of incumbents in campaign finance and lately because of social media.
you get fed everything you already agree with on your in your media feed and even because of this thing which you can maybe talk about demographic s sorting where people are moving to be near people that they already agree with. >> But Dave has done some interesting work on other elections that are basically comparable to this midterm. So 2000 uh 1994 which was after the president wins and controls both houses and then the first midterm what happens? They were big losses in the following four elections.
94, which was after Clinton had both houses, Nuke Gingrich and the Contract with America. Uh 2006, I don't count O2 because it was September 11th, but 2006, which was after George W.'s reelect and he had both houses, big losses in ' 06. Um 2010, which is after Obama won in '08, had both houses, got murdered, lost 63 seats in in in 2010. And then 2018, which was Trump's first meeting. Now people say, "Oh, most of these seats can't be lost." But tell us about your analysis
about seats where the 55 plus seats. Tell everybody what that. >> So the question is, is this going to be a wave election? And I call a wave election any election where you're switching 30 seats or more in the House. >> Um, and so then the question is, well, how many competitive seats there are? So, you look at the Cook report and I don't want to go into how they do that, but uh and some people use the presidential vote in in the last election and
that's pretty much a measure of how liberal or conservative a district is in some ways. But, uh in my view, the best way to look at it is to look at the previous what did the incumbent do in the previous election they were in >> just two years ago. >> Yeah. So, well, no, this is the one you can use one because the president is involved in that. So I got the president. So I if I'm looking at 90 if I'm looking at 2006, I'm looking
at 2002. I'm looking at the last election. And in that case, I uh broke the tables down by saying, well, any election where the person, the incumbent won by two and a half points or less, that means a 2.5% swing changes the seat. And then one where it's a traditional 55 45 point swing switches the seat. But I I did it at 55 and over and 60 and over. And in wave elections, you'd be quite surprised at how many seats are 55 and over. In some
elections, it's even a majority. And in 60 and over, it's like 30 35% of the seats. So, in a wave election, something's happening across the country, a combination of the things we've already mentioned. uh independents coming out the part the uh the in this one if you look at Republicans how enthused they are they are by five six seven eight points less likely to vote say they're less likely to vote uh Doug's polls uh on the economists have a very good measure of strict likelihood of
voting versus loose and no matter how you look at that Republicans are less likely they're less enthusiastic about election means they're less likely to turn out Therefore, the swing is going to be, in my view, the swing's going to be bigger. The president, as Bob said, the president's uh popularity has dropped. And that's true of all the other elections that we talked about. Nothing like this. And then because Democrats generally 90% vote Democrat, 90% are Republicans. You pick up a few votes there, but in my
view, it's independents who swing these elections. And I've never seen such a big gap for independence. The last gap I had was uh over over 30 points >> that independents say they're voting Democrat this time and not Republican. I also looked at he has a couple of good questions. Uh are you likely would you be willing to vote for a Democrat? Would you be willing to vote for a Republican? And this time non-magga Republicans not there's a question we have to separate them out but non-Maga
Republicans are quite much are about 9% of non-MAGA Republicans say in House elections 11% in Senate elections say they'd be willing consider to vote for a Democrat and only 2% of Democrats say they'd be willing to vote. So that whole set of factors leads me to believe that this is uh this is going to be a wave election certainly in the House. Now, to back you up on voter intensity, I was looking at a Pew poll which said on the Democrats, this is a week ago,
Friday, uh what percent are extremely vot motivated to vote? 63% of Democrats extremely motivated, 46% are Republicans. So, pretty good gap on voter. Now, now Doug, there are other people who say that the pollsters undercount systematically have undercounted Trump voters, undercounted Republicans generally even longer than that >> because a lot of people in the media because they Trump Trump staffers say that White House staffers and Republican operatives all say that. They say, "Oh, they're undercounted because people don't want to admit they're going to vote for
Trump or because they when someone says they're calling from the media, except you're going to tell me they don't call anymore. But someone says they're from the media and they're doing the poll, they say, "Well, I hate the media and I'm not going to answer you." So, what is the answer to this? You know, what do you say about the phenomenon of undercounting Trump voters? >> If you can see the look on his face, >> two I've had I've had like 20 conversations. >> I've never
heard this question. He has written at least three formal papers on this topic alone. >> Um, so it's true. I mean, we consistently underestimated the Trump vote that the size of that is a lot less than people think. So, um, for example, in 2024, which was the worst miss, uh, the, uh, average poll was one to two points u, uh, two low on Tom. >> Now, that's two to four points on the lead. Uh so you know that's a big deal in the election where from
one by one and a half points you know if you were uh off four points on the lead it's pretty embarrassing. I was in that category. uh um you know why is this um well it it is the things you're saying which is Trump says it's fake news and they're fake polls and so forth that um so we know we get lower cooperation rates uh from Trump voters what we do is we try to correct uh so um if we're doing textbased polls which is what
I'm heavily doing at the moment Everybody here gets 100 texts a day on the phone. >> Please answer though because only 100. >> They're either asking for money. More of them are asking for money actually. >> Um any we can control the party registration of the people. We know what the vote is in the area. We have models of who's going to vote one way or the other. And then we ask them how they voted in the last election. So, we're constantly trying to rebalate so
that um we get the right fraction of past Trump voters. There still appears to be a small bias in terms of the Trump voters that we get are more likely to be the discontented Trump voters than the happy Trump voters. >> Um so I, you know, it would not shock me to see that we're off by a point or two um in the Democratic direction. But I mean, we're in a world where polls are basically Democrats plus 8 to 11. Um, so one or two says
the margin is not going to change that one. It will change a bunch of individual races. Um, and then secondly, the midterm polls have been quite good. Now, no, every four years we have a midterm election, so there aren't a lot of cases, but um there was no appreciable bias in either 2022 uh or 2018 or 2014 for that matter. >> Beyond this underounting issue for people who signed up, one of the people some people submitted questions. One of the questions that people submitted was, "What
can we do more generally to make polling more accurate?" >> Answer our text. All right, before before we sum up on the House, one last question. What about redistricting? California went one way, launched this mid decade redistricting, then a bunch of Republican states did the same thing going the other way, Florida, Ohio, Texas, etc. What's the net effect? meant positive for either party or was >> um down ballot uh published a uh did did a considerable amount of work and put together the presidential vote in
those districts that in 34 of the districts that have been redone. Uh so I I looked at that reasonably carefully and uh can't you know I can't run regressions on that not much but so if you look at that and it it then gives how much President Trump won or lost by in the previous election if it's if it is as I believe it will be there'll be 30 seats or more uh the best the Republicans could count on out of that is two or three
seats and if it's the worst I think they might even lose out of there. Okay, conclusion on the house. The blue wave might be bigger than we think. Could be a problem. I don't know. Ask Doug. He's been disagreeing with me for some time. >> Um, yeah. So, we do Wait a minute. Did he say Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. >> I'm just to disagree with you, Dave. Uh, yeah. So we are in a different world than 2014 or 2006 and certainly 1994. Um there is this
dead spot between seeds that were Republican plus five and Republican plus 10. Um so a fivepoint uniform swing that is you move every district five points gets you Democrats picking up 15 or so seats. um between uh five and 10 points, there's really only about 15 more seats. Um so it's you need to be at about 10 plus to get one of these super waves. Um and I don't know our numbers have bounced around on this. So I have no conviction or whether we're at eight
or 11. >> Almost four we were taking talking about. Here's the data of the PL of the 55 plus. So in other words, it was 10 or more in those ones I mentioned. In 94, 34 seats lost. 19 were 55% or more four years earlier. In 2006, 30 seats lost, 17 were in 55 plus districts. In 2010, like I said, 63 seats lost, 33 were in supposedly say 55 plus districts. In 2018, 41 seats lost, 28 of them in 55 plus. So you do have 10.
The reason I worry about the reason I worry about what Doug says given my prediction actually well does it hurt me not only I'm so I don't really care I mean what kind of hurt me I got the article wrong so I he's right about that's the that's the dead spot and it is true that it's not like 94 or 2006 but but my view is I think there are enough seats like that if you calculated it uh and in a wave election it'll it'll turn
30, but he's right to question. That's the what he brought up with. That's the area where you have to worry about you're not going to get there. >> All right, let's turn to the Senate and maybe we'll do a lightning round and just rip through a bunch of these races, see who's ahead, talk about some of the interesting features that we call of the race. Let's start in Maine. Oh, first of all, to set the table, it's 5347, right? That's what the Republicans have right now.
Um, but let's talk about where they're vulnerable. So, we'll start in Maine. Susan Collins, everybody always says she's going to lose and she has nine lives. She always ends up winning. Okay. And even with Trump underwater badly in Maine. I think Udub has it as a tossup. I think Cook has it a toss up right now. But you tell but but just to set the table just one little thing. Okay. The Democrats started this race with a guy who had a Nazi tattoo on his chest
and had beaten his both his former wife and his former girlfriend. So they got rid of him. That was pretty smart. And then they nominated a guy who has two children with his cousin. It's a deep second cousin. Okay. But do you think maybe they should have learned from the first case? Like am I wrong about that? >> Well, I'm from Kentucky and there would be A >> All right. So, uh, Susan Collins. >> Um, so we have um Jackson up by two over Collins, which
is less than we had Sarah Gideon up 2000. Um my general view though is um she's you know survived uh five terms. Uh I don't think she's going to survive a sixth. >> All right. What about you want to do Maine or Texas? I'm going to go to Texas. >> No Maine. I'm not sure of that. Although I think Trump if if she does go down it's a tariff. You don't >> It's a tariff. It's a tariff. I agree. Okay. Texas your home turf. Okay, that's
another one where I always feel like Texas is Charlie Brown in the football. The the Democrats always think they're going to win Texas and I remember Boto going to beat Ted Cruz. Didn't happen. The football always gets pulled away. But now you have Telerico up eight in one poll. I saw up six in another 50 to 44. But you have to tell on this, but Doug said he was he's been up in Telerico has been in the last 18 polls in a row, which kind of
gets the variability out. What do you think, Terrico? >> I have I have my my good friend in Texas has been saying for since ' 88, he's been telling me, "Nope, this is the year we got it." So, this that's many many years that this has happened. And on occasion, I've gone with him and regretted it. Uh I So, it's I do think that the the Republicans have done all they could. they've nominated the worst candidate. Now, I don't just mean his personal what he does
and stuff like that. I'm talking about he's really boring. Have >> you ever came in and kicked out a perfectly acceptable incumbent who >> So, my view is >> Yeah. >> I I'm going to go go I'm going to go along and say I think it will be Ter Rico but >> that won't be the first time I was wrong. >> Okay, let's go to Alaska. Dan Sullivan, my big body, he's a great person. worked went to Harvard, worked at Georgetown Law School, worked for Condi
Rice and Bob Zelik was a marine attorney general of Alaska. He's a sitting senator. Okay, Democrats here came up with a great new trick. Great. First time I've seen it. Fantastic. They got another guy named Dan Sullivan to file for candidacy and he's also on the ballot. So, there's two Dan Sullivan. >> So, in a race that might be decided by a point and it's rank choice voting, >> it's a rankoice voting. So that matters. >> Now Mary uh Mary Mary Pullet, she has been a
Democrat congresswoman. She's ahead. She she you know the polling is laid there a little bit more less frequent and reliable than other states, but very tight race. Who wants to call Alaska? >> So first let me prepared. Um Alaska, uh Nebraska, and Iowa are all basically about even their polls going up. Canada. Of those three, I think Alaska is the most likely to go Democratic. Um, but easily all three go. >> Uh, I don't I don't I don't disagree with Alaska is it's an amazing place
to watch people campaign because like a big event. I was one time in Cole Harbor with uh Alisa Merkowski and there were like 42 people there >> and she was happy. Oh, 42. That's great. >> Big rally. They threw over pulled all and got this. All right. >> So, next one. >> Keeping count here. >> Yes. >> Uh if we give Alaska the Democrats >> Yeah. >> Uh we've now predicted three switches >> already. So then they remain tax that makes it. >> Okay, let's go
to Ohio. Could be another Democrat pickup. John Hus said has never run before. He was appointed to replace Jatie Vance. People will recall. Um he's running against Sherid Brown. Now, Sharon Brown's history is he was in the Senate for 18 years before he lost in 24. He was in the House for 14 years before that. He was Ohio Secretary of State before that. He was in the Ohio legislature before that. So, he's, you know, he's been around for a long time. He did go to Yale,
so no surprise. >> He never got liberal. But anyway, um I see that as a kind of uh likely Democratic pickup, but what do you think? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I think it's still close. What's the number say? >> Brown up. >> Brown by they range from about two >> and North Carolina. Sorry. >> Okay. North Carolina is the next one which is ironic. Trump again sort of shove Tom Phyllis out because he did vote against reconciliation which is sort of a cardinal sin
but he kicked him out and now Governor Cooper's going to win by >> over now at 20 points. >> Democrats picking up five seats. >> Well, I haven't voted yet anyway. Okay. Um >> was Wyoming >> Iowa? No, Wyoming's not swing. Oh, Joanie Ernst, she's retiring. So on the Republican side, you have Ashley Henson, the young congresswoman. On the Democrat side, you have a young state rep and a parolympic athlete named Josh Turk. Trump won there by 13 points. But the farmers are very angry about
tariffs. Speaking about tariffs, they're angry at Trump. Um there's a third party candidate to Turk's left, so maybe that swings it to Henson, but even if it's one or two votes, but um Henson or Turk, >> Henson. >> Hansen. Okay, Republicans hold Michigan. Okay, everybody's been watching this. Very interesting. Gary Peters retiring, kind of a moderate Democrat, obviously. Abdullahad, great speaker. He spoke at his Michigan graduation, but pretty far left, anti-Israel, abolish ICE, Medicare for all, etc. On the Republican side, you have Mike Rogers, pretty
popular congressman, has a whole bunch of outside money coming in, but very, very close. Um, interestingly on the tariff question, Roger was out with a spot about a week ago, but the lead of the spot is Canada is not our enemy on television. Um, so banning Trump on that issue. >> What an insight. >> And then you have the whole Muslim Brother. >> Imagine that's the campaign issue you have to go with >> and Canada. >> It's an interesting thing about we're going to talk about
the DSA on the left, but I'll say it, Rogers. Uh probably I'll say it. Um but he's running five points behind the Democratic Detroit. >> Yeah. And what's Trump in Michigan like minus 20 and then say it's up one? >> Yeah. Trump did win Michigan but three points or last time. >> I I think the uh Republic the Democrats in um in in Maine, the Democrats in Michigan had they had another candidate. This this would be over. had the woman who ran against Elsa had won
that this race would be over. She'd be up seven, eight points. >> Right. >> Right. >> So that's the thing. I mean, >> one of the great ironies of this race is the one thing the Republicans have going for them is the Democrats lurch to the left in some of these states. We didn't talk about Peggy Flanigan and who's the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota who's like in a close race now with the TV broadcaster Michelle Tofoya. Um, and you know, she's like defending the the the
fraudsters in in the Medicaid and and hospital cases in Minnesota. >> Show you how bad this is in Montana, not exactly a Democratic state. I was fishing up there a couple weeks ago and I wore I had two t-shirts. One with elbows up with a Canadian flags on saying elbows up. Let's do this. And I and the second one was Lake Victoria forever. And I was wondering whether I get shot or thumbs up and I got I I would say I got about 65% thumbs up.
>> People like it >> and nobody really nobody really >> hit me the finger. >> Okay, New Hampshire. Speaking of Canada, there we have Congressman Chris Papis. First ran in 2018. You know who he beat for all you trivia buffs out there when he first ran? Caroline Levit, the Republican nominee. Um but anyway, he's a congressman and he's had some bumps along the way. John Cenounu whose father was White House chief of staff and governor. His brother Chris was a very popular governor but he's down
like eight points. Can Cenounu win? >> No way to win. >> No way. But no. >> No. Okay. >> Georgia not going to happen. Six years ago everybody thought John Oaf would be very vulnerable. He's going to crush this guy Mike Collins. What's interesting there if I'm Gavin Newsome, I'm looking at John going >> could be a new candidate on the horizon. Um he's coming across very well. Um >> yeah, >> one wouldn't have predicted Kansas. And this is what's great about politics, the things people
do. Okay, Kansas elected a Republican senator since in 94 years, but >> Democrats, >> Democrats, excuse me. Um you have Roger Marshall incumbent against Adam Hamilton. So Roger Marshall was an OBGYn doctor. He sued 700 of his customers, his clients, for late payment, mostly on their deductible, on their copay. and 81 of his clients got arrested. Like great marketing thing if you're going to run for the Senate. Anyway, um now he with this guy Hamilton, Adam Hamilton, what do you think? Kansas swing. >> Um I
think there's a decent chance. Um I would favor slightly uh Hamilton over Marshall because Marshall is a very bad candidate. on the other hand it is Kansas uh and >> yeah frankly you know when we call say a race is 5149 and it's 2951 I say that was good that was close um but you can't predict these races that are that close >> one other one I'll throw out there because it gets in the realm of dirty tricks Montana which is interesting because the Democrats have
had a trick of having somebody they nominate somebody who's not really the candidate to be the Democratic nominee to get through the primary and then the real candidate runs as independent. So in Montana, the president of the University of Montana is running as an independent. Very good candidate, but the Democratic candidate, this woman, a Lanny Blankhead, that they kind of got to run and she was supposed to drop out by plan. She's a she's a coach for Mighty Sparrow coaching. Anyway, she won't drop out. She
said, I no, I'm staying in. And so now the the US attorney who's a Republican is ahead 38 to 30 because she's drawing 16% of the vote. So the little run the independent strategy backfired. Anyway, to to add up the Senate so we can go to questions. Say the Republicans are going to definitely lose North Carolina. Let's say they lose Ohio, Alaska, and Maine, but they hold the the and the Democrats hold get Georgia, hold Minnesota to hold New Hampshire. If you do that math, the
whole thing comes down to Michigan. So, wouldn't it be ironic if all came down to Michigan and the whole thing about nominating a DSA candidate? >> You see it that close? the TSA candidates Florida, right? >> He's the Muslim brother. >> He's the Muslim brother. >> No, I I think it's going to be 51 or 52 Democratic >> number 51. >> One last thing I'll throw out there. >> By the way, for a quick comment and we can get into it in the questions, but >>
if it's 51, Federman might switch. >> That's true. That is that is a wild card. Very good point. People are worried about that in the >> um >> I do think all this raises another question which we can talk about in the general session which is where do both parties go from here? I think on the Republican side, I would say we've this is going to be evidence I believe that we're passing peak Trump, right? I live in Wyoming, Jackson. Um Wyoming is the state which
in which Trump had the highest margin in the country in both 16 2020 and 24 over over 70% all three cases. And this year in the Republican, if you win the Republican primary, you won the seat. In the Republican primary, the Trump endorsed candidate for governor lost to a ranch who just talked about economy and egg and jobs. The Freedom Caucus members of the House who had taken over the House from the regular way, normal Republicans, who by the way are 100% pro-life, 100% anti-ax, and
100% pro-second amendment, but they were viewed as too liberal. Um, the Freedom Caucus lost 14 seats and the normal Republicans took back over. So, one question is, is there a gaping hole? How does the Republican party going to define itself? And then on the Democrat side, you have tremendous pressure on the left flank from the progressives, from the DSA. You do have Peggy Flanigan. You do have the woman in Florida, Nixon. You do have Al say you you kind of have both parties playing to the
fringes, if you will, historic, you know, that's an observable trend the last 25 years. Isn't there a white space for the middle for someone to be a progrowth Republican who says we can have a better country if we invest in research? Yes, let's keep taxes low and regulation low, but >> you wouldn't do tariffs. you wouldn't insult your allies and same on the Democrats. >> But that's understandable. The the money the money comes from the left and the right. Uh so that that that's part of
it. Um and political activists have always been left and right. This goes back on the 50s when we when people went around and test looked and gave questionnaires to people at the Republican and Democratic conventions. They're further left and right. So activists are further left and right. the role of primaries uh as in the congressional level and at the presidential level uh get your turnout's not that high. So it's not surprising to me that uh that that you get the problem Bob says in these sort
of uh less where independents are not very paying much attention you're going to be uh the brunt of each part is going to be left and right. There's also name ID. Here's the interesting fact. If you look at the polling right now, who do you support in 28? >> Among Democrats, the leader is Kla Harris. Among Republicans, the leader is JD Vance. I'll sit here today and I don't think either one of them is going to be the president of United States in 28. I don't
I don't think Kla's even running, but I don't think even Well, either one will comment on the way forward does. >> Yeah. So if Elsad and Paxton lose, then there'll be some movement for uh Republicans not going for super Trumpy uh candidates and Democrats not going in the DSA direction. >> Um if it's a reverse, then >> even if there are very narrow victories, people interpret this the way they want to in advance. Um the you know the overall problem is that um among the Republican
electorate it's 55 60% of MAGA uh and so anybody that tries to take an anti-magga position uh is going to lose in Republican primary Democrats have less of a problem here but the you know that uh third of Democrats roughly think socialism is a better economic system than capitalism. Um DSA has a favorable view. Twothirds of Democrats say they would vote for a DSA candidate. So being a DSA candidate doesn't get you a majority among Democrats, but it gets you a substantial minority. Um >> and
would you say if AOC ran against Chuck Schumer that's not in some win, >> right? Okay. Questions from the peanut gallery. Who has one right here? >> I had two questions first. We keep seeing this narrative of more and more polarization amongst the voters. So have you seen the independent base sort of shrink over the years? >> Question did you hear the question was you've seen the polarization among voters but has the independent base shrunk during the period? >> Yeah. So our colleague Mo Fiorina has
been studying this for ages and his argument I think is basically right is people have not moved. So distribution still has most the people in the middle. What has moved is the parties have gotten more extreme. So that these people in the middle who now switch back and forth between the parties um but the parties are driven by their bases. >> Interesting. >> And one number that >> always 80 80% of Democ 80% of Republicans call themselves conservative or very conservative. Democrats are a little more
heterogeneous but still 6 2/3 to 70%. But independents uh when you sort out leaning uh independents are still about 55% uh in the middle and if you think about the number of states that matter in a presidential election is declining and the number of voters in those states is declining and in those elections it's the independents who swing >> swing it. So if you look at 2016 and 2020, a graph of the counties, it's it fits almost there's just a few counties in the middle that
switch between 2016 and 2020 that make the difference and their uh their independence determined those counties. >> One thing to your question, interestingly, the last Gallup poll, last year Gallup poll, you ask Americans to self ID by party, it is still 27 Republican, 27 Democrat, 45 independent. So, but I think you have more leaner independents in these 50-50 contested elections in the last couple years. >> People call themselves independents. An increasing proportion of them are more predictable even though they call themselves independent. I think other
questions right here in the back. >> Uh thank you guys so much. This has been awesome. Uh I'm curious if uh the AI backlash has been a part of the polling at all or part of the conversation. I know it's a big topic here uh and you guys hadn't mentioned it, so I was curious. You're lucky because Doug started asking that question some a year ago. >> There's quite a bit of interest in data centers particularly by people who want to build them. There are hundred
of these things on the drawing boards at the moment. They're highly unpopular >> in both parties. >> Yes. Uh you know a couple years ago it was economic development. So you know we'll give them tax breaks. We'll try. Uh in the last year they've become toxic. Um it doesn't appear to be I mean most of the candidates have run away from this point. Um you know so there were Democrats like Josh Shapiro who were pushing them and you know they pulled back and certainly in the
Republican side but I don't think it's actually going to be a big issue in this but uh maybe big uh two years from now. >> Two things I would add just on the bipartisan point. You have Kathy Hokll for example in New York who put a moratorium on them. You even have Josh Shapiro putting things up in a place where they would build a lot of data centers because there's a lot of gas shell gas there. But even on conservative taxes, Greg Abbott put an audit
so that before a data center can be built, they have to prove that they can supply their own energy and supply their own water and they're not taking it from the grid and so on and so forth. So, uh, unpopular in bipartisan way. But the one little caveat is I think the hyperscalers and others have that sponsors of these things have just woken up to the fact of how unpopular they are and I think you will start to see them spend a lot of money on
public relations and politics to try to make them more popular. But >> last question, >> I'm curious uh if you guys look at prediction markets and what you think the efficacy or effectiveness is of those between PS. >> Yeah. So, uh yes. And um so the production markets take all the PS into account. So they're sort of like full aggregators like Nate Silver. Uh we had a uh French Israely guy uh who um was convinced that there were a bunch of shy Trump voters in 2020
and he did a bunch of bold with us and um bet heavily in the prediction markets and ended up making $80 billion going. Um, I have to tell you the results. If you look at the polls he did, um, they way overstated Trump's support. Uh, so they were less accurate than the public balls, but he was on the right side of that batch. >> I think that's all the time we have questions for. I'm going to say one thing closing. I think personally I spend a
lot of time I raise kids, spend time in hockey rings, go around with normal Americans, beat people in businesses. I actually, maybe I'm in the minority on this. I think most people in the United States sort of want the same things. They want a job that they can count on. They want to have enough money to pay for their parents when they get older. They want to send their kids to a good college so that they can have a better life than they have. They'd like
to live in a safe enough town that they're not going to get mugged on the way to work, you know. But I don't think any Americans are not divided on those questions and that's what most people want. So I believe coming out of this we do have a country that's gone to the fringes but I think there's a gaping hole in the middle for a more analytic and sort of get something done based approach to the middle where uh we can move the country forward together.
So that's my speech. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.