Speaker 1: We're listening to Boomberg Opinion. I'm Vonnie Quinn. Well, the
Speaker 1: midterms are finally upon us. I spoke with Bloomberg Opinions
Speaker 1: Jonathan Bernstein to get the state of play just a
Speaker 1: few days out. Jonathan, let's start with the Senates. Obviously,
Speaker 1: polls changing by the day, by the hour, but it
Speaker 1: looks a lot closer than it did just a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. Well, it's look close the whole time.
Speaker 1: It was sort of close with a little tilt of
Speaker 1: the Democrats six weeks ago. Six weeks before that, it
Speaker 1: was close with little tilts of the Republicans. Now it
Speaker 1: looks like we just don't know. And it's seat by seat.
Speaker 1: There's several seats that could go either way, and so
Speaker 1: we can't even say, ah, well, if Pennsylvania goes to
Speaker 1: the Republicans, then we don't know the answer. There's about
Speaker 1: five or so seats that are still up for grabs,
Speaker 1: which means that even though it's sort of a dead
Speaker 1: heat in terms of what the polls say about who
Speaker 1: will have the majority, we still could have fifty three Republicans.
Speaker 1: We could still have fifty two Democrats, three Democrats, even
Speaker 1: perhaps even more so, there's a lot of them. Certainty,
Speaker 1: we just have to wait. Now, do we know yet
Speaker 1: what voters are going to vote upon? Oh? I think
Speaker 1: that it looks more or less like what we thought
Speaker 1: from the beginning, which is that it's going to be
Speaker 1: a good year for Republicans because there's a Democrat in
Speaker 1: the White House. In mid terms, the normal reaction is
Speaker 1: to vote against the party that has the presidency, and
Speaker 1: in particular, if the president is unpopular, which Biden remains,
Speaker 1: then that puts the Democrats even farther behind the eight ball.
Speaker 1: Part of that has to do with the economy. Part
Speaker 1: of why Biden is unpopular is because people have a
Speaker 1: perception the economy is terrible. The perception is even worse
Speaker 1: than the reality based on the statistics. If you look
Speaker 1: sort of at the formula for what's supposed to happen,
Speaker 1: if we have a president at around approval, you would
Speaker 1: expect the Republicans to win a large number of House
Speaker 1: seats and certainly take at least the one seat they
Speaker 1: need to get the Senate majority. It looks right now
Speaker 1: possible that Republicans will get the sort of forty to
Speaker 1: forty five seats that the fundamentals would predict, but more
Speaker 1: likely they're going to fall short of that, and they
Speaker 1: could follow quite a bit short of it. So why
Speaker 1: is that happening? I think it still seems likely that
Speaker 1: abortion is the thing that's driving Democrats to have only
Speaker 1: a bad year instead of a terrible year. And we
Speaker 1: have to wait and see just how many young people
Speaker 1: and suburban women come out and vote as well. We
Speaker 1: don't know what those are exactly. Pennsylvania, it's an interesting
Speaker 1: Senate race, has been all along. Is there anything that
Speaker 1: can go wrong for either Candida between now and the
Speaker 1: actual election day? You know, probably not. Probably At this point,
Speaker 1: it's just a question of you know, they all have
Speaker 1: their turnout machines working their best to get voters to
Speaker 1: the polls at the last minute, and they'll do their
Speaker 1: best at that. You know, every candidate who has a
Speaker 1: decent chance is advertising now, whether it's directly or through
Speaker 1: support from one of the party committees or from a
Speaker 1: superpack or something like that, so that tends to sort
Speaker 1: of cancel each other out. So, you know, at this
Speaker 1: point it seems pretty unlikely that the last minute event
Speaker 1: could really make much of a difference. And yet President
Speaker 1: Biden is dumping their old day Saturday along with Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: Don't fall for that, Okay, do well? And Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is also going to be in the state. They're obviously
Speaker 1: putting a lot of time and effort into Pennsylvania. Will
Speaker 1: it be a disaster for the party that doesn't win.
Speaker 1: You know, each seat matters a lot, and Pennsylvania matters
Speaker 1: a lot because it has both a very contested Senate
Speaker 1: seat and also has a very contested gumatorial seat. It's true,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, we don't expect the last minute
Speaker 1: campaigning to shift vote very much, but that's because both
Speaker 1: parties do the last minute campaigning. If only Republicans campaigned
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania over the last forty eight hours, then perhaps
Speaker 1: that would help them a lot. But it's sort of
Speaker 1: a zero sum game because both parties go full out,
Speaker 1: and they both go full out in all of the
Speaker 1: relevant districts. They all have their internal polling, and in
Speaker 1: addition of the external bowling, they know which races are closed,
Speaker 1: you know where to put their resources in at the end,
Speaker 1: and they come up with the same answer, whether it's
Speaker 1: seats that originally leaned one way or the other. At
Speaker 1: this point, they know which close races are, and all
Speaker 1: of those are going to be fully funded and have
Speaker 1: surrogates and have all the other resources that a party
Speaker 1: can put into it. And that's why the last minute
Speaker 1: stuff sort of canceled each other out because there's so
Speaker 1: much of it on both sides. Michigan is a fascinating
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many fascinating ones, but Michigan is
Speaker 1: particularly fascinating. I guess because a it's so close and
Speaker 1: be yours and know of Liz Cheney endorsing Elisa's Latkin,
Speaker 1: does that make a difference to her? You know, I
Speaker 1: think that there's very few endorsements that make a big
Speaker 1: difference in the end. Liz Cheney also endorsed the Democrat
Speaker 1: in the Ohio Senate race. The only endorsement that I've
Speaker 1: seen that might move a few votes because of so
Speaker 1: unexpected is in Oklahoma, where there's a surprisingly competitive race.
Speaker 1: Former Republican and Sooner football star J. C. Watts has
Speaker 1: endorsed the Democratic candidate for governor in expected to be
Speaker 1: a surprisingly close race. So maybe because that was sort
Speaker 1: of unexpected and you know, it would make some difference.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, in a Michigan House race in
Speaker 1: Ohio Senate race. People who would be listening to Liz
Speaker 1: Cheney have already made up their minds long ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's such a good point. Georgia, does it go to
Speaker 1: a runoff? My bet and I don't bet on politics
Speaker 1: and bet on horses. Um, I would guess that Georgia
Speaker 1: certainly seems like it's headed for a runoff. And that's
Speaker 1: very interesting because, just as we had two years ago,
Speaker 1: it's very possible that control of the Senate could come
Speaker 1: down to a runoff in Georgia. And even if it doesn't,
Speaker 1: one would suspect that, you know, it could change the
Speaker 1: race in all kinds of different ways to have it
Speaker 1: coming once the rest of the Senate is already set,
Speaker 1: assuming that it is, it could take weeks to decide
Speaker 1: some of these races. Well, that's the other question. I mean,
Speaker 1: Nevada is also both condidates pulling identically. Now, so whoever
Speaker 1: comes into the runoff with the lead traditionally has had
Speaker 1: an advantage, especially if it's a challenger. But whether that's
Speaker 1: true in a situation where you know, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the race would be even more nationalized than it is,
Speaker 1: especially if we know the control of the Senate is
Speaker 1: at stake More next on Boomberg opinion. I'm Vonnie Quinn.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts, Jonathan on whether the pol's button
Speaker 1: is hit after Tuesday night and we have to wait
Speaker 1: many days, many weeks for many of the outcomes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's how the system is set up, and
Speaker 1: we should all be very aware of it that depending
Speaker 1: on which state it is, even sometimes within the state,
Speaker 1: it takes longer to do the votes for sometimes for
Speaker 1: very good reasons, sometimes for reasons that one of the
Speaker 1: parties wanted it to be that way. But you know
Speaker 1: in some states they accept ballots that are postmarked by
Speaker 1: election day, Well, that takes some time. In Pennsylvania, notoriously,
Speaker 1: the Republican legislature has not allowed pre opening and pre
Speaker 1: preparing ballots that come in the absolute ballots to be
Speaker 1: ready to be counted in advance, and so that means
Speaker 1: that they have to start sorting them in all that
Speaker 1: which takes time not until after the polls closed, which
Speaker 1: means we won't find out about Pennsylvania right away because
Speaker 1: the ballots take time. So, and this is in the
Speaker 1: normal proceedings. Do you imagine that there will be people
Speaker 1: contesting results, and that there might be you know, sort
Speaker 1: of election denial going on. Again, it seems likely. I
Speaker 1: think Bloomberg counted something like two sixty five Republican candidates
Speaker 1: who are supporting the false idea that election was decided
Speaker 1: by fraud. Presumably some of them are going to yell
Speaker 1: fraud if they lose, even if they lose by quite
Speaker 1: a bit. We saw that in the primaries. We saw
Speaker 1: some Republican candidates lose Republican primaries in Republican states and
Speaker 1: still refused to concede it. It used to be you
Speaker 1: needed something, some kind of irregularity, something that looked funny
Speaker 1: at least, and now that's not true. They are ready
Speaker 1: to say that normal procedures and because Donald Trump pioneered this,
Speaker 1: that normal, regular counting procedures must have been fraudulent if
Speaker 1: you lose. And we also should be careful because we're
Speaker 1: also going to see from both sides legitimate election challenges,
Speaker 1: because that happens also not because of terrible fraud or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but because sometimes there are things that
Speaker 1: the parties can legitimately claim went wrong and they can
Speaker 1: go to court and try to determine it. And one
Speaker 1: of the things for us as observers to do is
Speaker 1: to make sure we can say, oh, yes, that's normal,
Speaker 1: going to court the way you do it normally, a
Speaker 1: little aggressive maybe, but then others are, Wow, this is
Speaker 1: something that is really a threat to democracy. What happens, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: If Republicans have their best case scenario, what do they
Speaker 1: get to do for the next two years? You know,
Speaker 1: it's a great question. Republicans are post policy party. They
Speaker 1: have been running, for example, on inflation. They don't have
Speaker 1: a policy agenda on inflation. They've been running on crime,
Speaker 1: which is mostly a state and local issue anyway, but
Speaker 1: a lot of federal candidates have been running a crime
Speaker 1: They don't have an agenda on crime. Their main agenda
Speaker 1: on crime appears to be, if you look at their
Speaker 1: commercials and a rhetoric, that they are against the funding
Speaker 1: the police forces. But Democrats, except for a handful of them,
Speaker 1: aren't for defundings. In fact, Democrats at the congressional level
Speaker 1: have sent tons of money to local police forces in
Speaker 1: the last two years. So you know exactly what Republicans
Speaker 1: would do differently is very hard to tell. The main
Speaker 1: things we have to worry about are that Republicans would
Speaker 1: take anti democratic measures and would promote chaos. So, you know,
Speaker 1: we have to worry about the possibility of a government
Speaker 1: default over the debt limit. We have to worry about
Speaker 1: a shutdown once it's time to pass new appropriations bills,
Speaker 1: So that kind of thing we have to worry about.
Speaker 1: We have to worry about the possibility they're going to
Speaker 1: start impeaching the president, the vice president, cabinet members over nothing.
Speaker 1: So that's a concern. Other than that, you know, the
Speaker 1: parties have proved time and again that they are capable
Speaker 1: sometimes of getting a lot done during divided government, but
Speaker 1: this Republican Party, I'm not so sure. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: very likely. Do we need to be worried about violence
Speaker 1: at all, Jonathan, You know, you hope not. You also
Speaker 1: hope that police forces, that the FBI are working on it.
Speaker 1: There was a warning earlier about the possibility domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: You know, we had the attack on Nancy Closi's house
Speaker 1: just recently, We've had other situations and we've seen, you know,
Speaker 1: some very inflammatory rhetoric coming almost not i wouldn't say
Speaker 1: exclusively from Republicans, but mainly from Republicans, And you know,
Speaker 1: we do have to worry about that, certainly after what
Speaker 1: we went through in the last general action. Yeah, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: So that the day comes and the results start rolling in,
Speaker 1: or at least the early returns. What states are you
Speaker 1: watching most closely? Obviously you're watching all of them, I
Speaker 1: know that, But what once mostly be forward to watching. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess the thing that that I'll try to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on. In particular, in addition to majorities in
Speaker 1: Congress and the governor's is some of these lower profile
Speaker 1: races that could be very important, including the secretary of
Speaker 1: state races in states where we have some you know,
Speaker 1: election deniers UM who have made some very extreme comments
Speaker 1: may have been nominated by Republicans, and it's just not
Speaker 1: clear if we could guarantee free and fer elections going forward.
Speaker 1: So that's something that obviously it is a little bit
Speaker 1: is quite a bit scary, I would say, and I'll
Speaker 1: be watching that in particular. When the history books are
Speaker 1: written eventually, do we look back at this period as
Speaker 1: a turning point? Do these mid terms change anything about
Speaker 1: the nature of politics and how it's conducted in the
Speaker 1: United States? You know, I think that we have to wait.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been listening a bunch of things that
Speaker 1: are quite frightening, and they are legitimately frightening. It's also
Speaker 1: possible that candidates can back off. It's possible that some
Speaker 1: of the candidates who have been saying the most extreme
Speaker 1: things once they're in office, um may calm down and
Speaker 1: basically behave themselves as normal conservative politicians. Nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: conservative politicians, not a threat to democracy. It's the radicalism
Speaker 1: that is. And we don't know yet to what extent
Speaker 1: we could be sating against radicalism at multiple state and
Speaker 1: local and federal levels, and to what extent that we'll
Speaker 1: just get Republican policy, which you know was normal regular
Speaker 1: parts in politics again as opposed to sort of crazy
Speaker 1: partis in politics. But I guess it's it goes in
Speaker 1: psychos right, Other than I we've had this throughout history
Speaker 1: where things get whipped up and suddenly there's a period
Speaker 1: of normalcy or quote unquote normalcy, and then suddenly there's
Speaker 1: a period of insanity again. It just it happens a lot. Well,
Speaker 1: if you look at the history of it. You know,
Speaker 1: violence in American policies is nothing new. You know, we
Speaker 1: had up through the Civil War, slavery was inherently violent,
Speaker 1: in the full century after the Civil War, we had
Speaker 1: a violent white supremacy aligned with a political party, the
Speaker 1: Southern Democrats, with the agreement from other Democrats and from
Speaker 1: Republicans in most cases to look the other way. And
Speaker 1: historians and political scientists looking at America through nineteen often say,
Speaker 1: we think of it as a democracy, but really was it,
Speaker 1: especially in parts of the country. Maybe somewhat in some
Speaker 1: parts and some whatnot in others. And we'll say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, American doxy really only dates back to the sixties.
Speaker 1: And then we had a wave of left wing violence
Speaker 1: in the late sixties and early seventies which was very destructive,
Speaker 1: a lot of people killed, um and that did not
Speaker 1: have the sport of political party. Now, this wave of
Speaker 1: violence very well, maybe alive with a political party. And
Speaker 1: that seems to be what the January syst Commission is
Speaker 1: telling us about what happened on January six. We don't
Speaker 1: know yet how close the ties were, but ties between
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, the White House, Donald Trump, and some
Speaker 1: of these paramilitary groups and so you know, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: very scary, and we don't know how it would turn out.
Speaker 1: It's tempting to think, well, it's cyclical. We'll go through
Speaker 1: a bad phase and the land again like Captains in
Speaker 1: the early seventies, but we don't know that it could
Speaker 1: get worse. Noomberg Opinions Jonathan Bernstein. Catch Boomberg Opinion with
Speaker 1: me Bonnie Quinn on Boomberg Radio weekends and every Friday
Speaker 1: as a podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform,
Speaker 1: and do join in. Comments and opinions always welcome. I'm
Speaker 1: at Bonnie Quinn on Twitter or email a vic In
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. Until next time on Bloomberg Opinion,
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