Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2: And I am Nate Silver. Well, shit is getting real.
Speaker 2: It's one week to go to the presidential election. And
Speaker 2: since this is a show about making good decisions, we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about some of the good and bad
Speaker 2: spoiler alert, mostly bad decisions that the campaigns have made
Speaker 2: so far in the race. How are they managing risk
Speaker 2: and reward?
Speaker 1: And after that, since we are a week out, we're
Speaker 1: going to look at the Silver Bulletin model and see
Speaker 1: where we stand and what this next week is shaping
Speaker 1: up to look like. The news this week has been
Speaker 1: I think more Trump dominant than it has been for
Speaker 1: a while while, maybe since the assassination. I'm attempt I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, but I think you actually did Google words
Speaker 1: analysis or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the number of people searching for Trump is the
Speaker 2: highest that it has been since the second assassination attempt,
Speaker 2: and you've not seen that spike for Harris. So sometimes
Speaker 2: having Google news searches is good at might indicate voter interest,
Speaker 2: but this seems like it's at least potentially correlated with
Speaker 2: with the rally that Trump held outside my apartment. Basis right.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, in your backyard, some square garden.
Speaker 2: I lived near Messi's Fort Garden, which is tremendously convenient
Speaker 2: when you're going to Rangers games or Knicks games. I'm
Speaker 2: a fan of both teams. A great start for the Rangers,
Speaker 2: by the way. But Trump also decided to have a
Speaker 2: rally there on Sunday went all day. I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe there's a next game nine. I'm not doing anything. Nope,
Speaker 2: Trump rally woke up at eight am. You hear Houghton
Speaker 2: and outside your window, and then all day my block
Speaker 2: is cordoned off. You have to show your idea to
Speaker 2: to you know, if you go get coffee, it'll go
Speaker 2: show your idea when you get back. So a comedian
Speaker 2: named Tony Henschliff, I believe that's fanatic, made a disparaging
Speaker 2: comment about.
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican disparaging comment.
Speaker 2: A joke, many.
Speaker 1: Disparaging comments, but yes one in particular.
Speaker 2: You called it a floating island of garbage, very dry
Speaker 2: humor at best. John Stewart defended him. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but like you know, Puerto Ricans, there's actually a fairly
Speaker 2: large Puerto Rican population in Pennsylvania. But you know, you
Speaker 2: had the all Stars. I don't know how to put it.
Speaker 2: You got Rudy Giuliani, you got Hope Hogan, you got
Speaker 2: Elon Musk. I know, if it's jumping around, I tried
Speaker 2: to avoid it, but this is kind of the major
Speaker 2: news cycle heading to the final week of the campaign.
Speaker 2: It dovetails with some other messaging that Kamala Hair is
Speaker 2: focused on. She is giving recordings on Tuesday early afternoon
Speaker 2: Tuesday night Eastern time. Harris is holding a rally in Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. At a location where Trump It's called it
Speaker 2: the Ellipse maybe or the Eclipse or something. I know,
Speaker 2: DC where Trump initiated the insurrection riot. Some people call
Speaker 2: it a coup. I think the coup experts say it's not.
Speaker 2: It's sparkling insurrection or not coup or something.
Speaker 1: It doesn't come from the coup region of Francia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but trying to bring this home to h January
Speaker 2: sixth and Trump's threats to democracy, which is, oh boy,
Speaker 2: now I'm gonna piss summer ar listeners. Not a message
Speaker 2: that one has to wonder whether it might be a
Speaker 2: little stale. This was a message that Joe Biden kicked
Speaker 2: his campaign off, and look, I believe that uh Trump,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think January six was really bad and
Speaker 2: I think he has no respect for the rule of
Speaker 2: law and the guardrails are weaker. And you know, to
Speaker 2: an elite like me, uh, college educated elite like me, uh,
Speaker 2: this messaging has a lot of resonance, but I don't
Speaker 2: know that it has as much message with swing voters.
Speaker 2: But anyway, Trump avy is kind of u the New
Speaker 2: York what The New York Times called a closing carnival
Speaker 2: of grievances, misogyny and racism plays into her hands a
Speaker 2: little bit when she had lacked the closing message. So
Speaker 2: I guess are we saying good decision or bad decision
Speaker 2: to have this?
Speaker 1: Well, So this is a This is an interesting one
Speaker 1: because you know, there's the old saying that all publicity
Speaker 1: is good publicity, but in this particular case, I don't
Speaker 1: actually know if that's the case, because there are some
Speaker 1: people who did not endorse Kamala Harris for president before
Speaker 1: who all of a sudden rose up and were like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck? You know? So we have we have
Speaker 1: peany Yeah, bad bunny, Mark, Anthony J. Lo, Ricky Martin.
Speaker 1: There are tons of people people whose names, by the way,
Speaker 1: like obviously Bad Bunny we hear all the time in
Speaker 1: j LO, you know, in the context of Ben Affleck
Speaker 1: we hear recently. But but like Mark Anthony and Ricky Martin,
Speaker 1: I'm like, whoa blast from the past.
Speaker 2: I have Martin and Ricky Martin reunion tour. It would
Speaker 2: sell out masses for gardens.
Speaker 1: It absolutely would. And that's when I started looking at
Speaker 1: the number of their followers. I was like, holy shit, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, this could actually, Like I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: like Bad Bundy, who has over eighteen million followers, Like
Speaker 1: these are people with massive reach, and as we've talked about,
Speaker 1: like even fractions of a percent in swing states matter.
Speaker 1: So I am wondering if that specific thing is going
Speaker 1: to matter on the on the margins, and so in
Speaker 1: terms of good decision bad decision, I'm not sure. I
Speaker 1: don't know if all these I actually I don't know
Speaker 1: if swing voters are listening, if undecided are listening. If
Speaker 1: they are, then maybe it was a bad decision. What
Speaker 1: do you think name?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't think old people like well you
Speaker 2: should a little reality in Pennsylvania. I mean He's had
Speaker 2: a lot of fucking rallies in Pennsylvania, you know the
Speaker 2: nash press attention that you get from this, but these
Speaker 2: this is like some of the most negative headlines, yes
Speaker 2: from the liberal media that Trump's gotten in weeks, but
Speaker 2: also from some news outlets like Politico or writers that
Speaker 2: are studiously neutral and in their headline choices are pointing
Speaker 2: out comments that they call racist, they don't say racially
Speaker 2: charged or and those probably aren't great headlines for Trump.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, I mean again, he is relying
Speaker 2: on picking up a substantial share of the vote from
Speaker 2: black and Hispanic voters. If you look at the polls,
Speaker 2: or something like a fifteen point shift among black voters.
Speaker 2: Supposedly there is something like a a eight point shift
Speaker 2: among Hispanic voters that vary their poll to poll. This
Speaker 2: is pre rally, yeah, rally, but yeah, maybe have to
Speaker 2: look at the Puerto Rican demographics and more detail. I
Speaker 2: think this coterie of people that Trump surrounds himself with,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, it's a goof a goofy
Speaker 2: law of act is you know at sight, I don't
Speaker 2: know what why more some Australian accent there. It's all good.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: It's not putting. Yeah, I think it's a bad decision
Speaker 2: to have this guy speak, and you had Republicans, your
Speaker 2: Republicans apologizing for it. That's kind of a relatively objective benchmark. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for rich Scott, the Republican Senate tour, one of them
Speaker 2: in Florida had to apologize for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, Pennsylvania has approximately half a million
Speaker 1: Puerto Ricans, So like to think that they thought that
Speaker 1: this was a good, good thing to do is just
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. It just goes to show that Trump
Speaker 1: truly does think that he can get away with anything
Speaker 1: at this point. And it doesn't matter. It's like this,
Speaker 1: you know, it's this Hubris that's next level.
Speaker 2: He's not a detailed guy. No, I don't think Trump
Speaker 2: is going with a red pan call it when he's
Speaker 2: a red pin or a black I don't think Crump's
Speaker 2: going over with a sharpie.
Speaker 1: Sharp as his instrument of choice, that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think he's going only with a sharpie
Speaker 2: and vetoing individual jokes. But but anyway, you want to
Speaker 2: talk about some earlier Yes.
Speaker 1: So, so I think I think we I think we're
Speaker 1: coming down on the line of bad decisions. But since
Speaker 1: we're talking about Puerto Rico and Pennsylvania and Puerto Ricans
Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania, let's go back in time to another pivotal
Speaker 1: campaign decision, which is choice of vice presidential candidate. And
Speaker 1: we we have our listeners know what you think, NATEA
Speaker 1: and what I think. But let's just let's just talk
Speaker 1: through it right now with one week ago until the election.
Speaker 1: Vice presidential candidate choice. Good decision, bad decision, overrated, underrated
Speaker 1: in terms of a factor.
Speaker 2: I think it was a bad decision to go with
Speaker 2: Tim Walls, who has been very much backgrounded after being
Speaker 2: part of this bratt summer. I mean, the argument was
Speaker 2: that at least he can kind of crack these like
Speaker 2: dad jokes and me a good public speaker. They haven't
Speaker 2: had him do that many TV appearances. When he has
Speaker 2: done them, he seemed very nervous. He kind of sucked,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna pull punches, especially in the early half
Speaker 2: of the jd Vance debate, and then the whole message
Speaker 2: that hey, buddy or just two guys hanging out having
Speaker 2: a debate, when the rest of the Kamala campaign has
Speaker 2: been about like what a unique threat is and how
Speaker 2: we should not normalize this. I just thought was like
Speaker 2: was very strange, and you also would like to have.
Speaker 2: You know, Shapira accomplishes two things. The more important one,
Speaker 2: of course, is that he is the governor of this
Speaker 2: really important state called Pennsylvania, an extra Pennsylvania. It's exact
Speaker 2: scenario that Harris would most want to have Jos Shapiro.
Speaker 2: Where Michigan is polling half a point to a point
Speaker 2: ahead for Harris, Wisconsin's pulling half a point to a
Speaker 2: point ahead. Pennsylvania is a pure tie zero point three
Speaker 2: points in favor of Trump according to our polling average.
Speaker 2: And so boy, just to have one extra percentage point
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania, so doesn't kind of fall It's not the
Speaker 2: straggler falling behind the line. Also, it would have like
Speaker 2: signaled more of a break toward this new generation of talent.
Speaker 2: Democrats have a lot of talented members. I mean, boy,
Speaker 2: one good thing is if if Harris loses for Democrats
Speaker 2: is that they actually have a really robust bench. Right,
Speaker 2: I mean, her career is going to be over it.
Speaker 2: Maybe she'll try to run percent or something again, right,
Speaker 2: probably get some university president job. I don't know, but
Speaker 2: you know, but they have Shapiro and Gretchen Whimer and
Speaker 2: Wes Moore in Maryland and ruffel Moarnock and Georgia, and
Speaker 2: they have a robust bench and like, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: the bench is better than the starting quarterback, but you
Speaker 2: are able to pick from the bench. And instead they went,
Speaker 2: I don't know what they did exactly, they went and
Speaker 2: like drafted a guy from like the Arena football or something.
Speaker 2: I just I think this is decision that, as I
Speaker 2: was critical of at the time, I think is not
Speaker 2: held up very well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree with that. And let me add
Speaker 1: to what you said. It's not just Pennsylvania. You alluded
Speaker 1: to this, but I think Shapiro has much better debating skills,
Speaker 1: would have come off much better against JD. Vance and
Speaker 1: in general right now, would be probably hammering home more guided,
Speaker 1: pointed messages with kind of the end game. This was
Speaker 1: is something we talked about last week that the campaign
Speaker 1: has been a little bit wishy washy hasn't really figured out,
Speaker 1: you know, what are we going to hammer home, you know,
Speaker 1: like abortion or whatever it is in these last weeks.
Speaker 1: And I think Shapiro would have actually probably been much
Speaker 1: better at that and so on the margin that might
Speaker 1: have helped with other swing voters. So I will agree
Speaker 1: with you bad decision for all of these.
Speaker 2: Reasons if you're running on personality, Because look, Harris doesn't
Speaker 2: really have ambitious new plans. You go to like the
Speaker 2: issue section of her page, her homepage and says a
Speaker 2: couple of heroes was a prosecutor. She cares about the people, like, no, honey,
Speaker 2: I want to know about the fucking issues. That's why
Speaker 2: I kicks on the issues page. Enough bio, enough fucking vibes.
Speaker 2: What are your issues? And she's been very afraid of
Speaker 2: that because on the one hand, she doesn't want to
Speaker 2: own the unpopular accomplishments of like the Biden Harris administration
Speaker 2: in their hands. She wants to run away from her
Speaker 2: unpopular positions in twenty nineteen, and like ambitious new government
Speaker 2: spending programs are harder sell in an environment where there's
Speaker 2: lots of concern about inflation and deficits and interest rates
Speaker 2: and things like that. And so I don't know, at
Speaker 2: least with Shapiro, you have two really strong personalities. Maybe
Speaker 2: they clash a little bit, but you can do things
Speaker 2: with clashing personalities. What are podcasts all about Maria clashing personalities.
Speaker 3: No, man, it's just yeah, yeah, And I think, well, well,
Speaker 3: there's something in there that will will come back to
Speaker 3: because it's another kind of good decision, bad decision, because
Speaker 3: obviously Kamwell Harris is in a really shitty position because
Speaker 3: she's still the VP, Biden is still president and she
Speaker 3: you know, she's also running, and she she has been
Speaker 3: put in this unfortunate place where where it does kind
Speaker 3: of put a damper on the types of things that
Speaker 3: she feels that she kind of can't say.
Speaker 1: But before we move on to that, let's let's do
Speaker 1: this decision for the Republican camp as well. Jd Vance
Speaker 1: good decision, bad decision.
Speaker 2: Also a bad decision. I mean there was like the
Speaker 2: season of jd Vance like couch jokes misinformation by the way,
Speaker 2: but jokes are okay if they're about Republicans. But like,
Speaker 2: he remains I believe maybe the most unpopular VP and history.
Speaker 2: I think Sarah Palin stumbers were declined at this points.
Speaker 2: That's probably a close two way race. Ohio is not
Speaker 2: a swing state. It does have a competitive Senate race.
Speaker 2: He is a good debater, I mean, Jie advances like
Speaker 2: the blogger personality type, right, Jadadvance would be a good
Speaker 2: podcaster and a good blogger, and that probably correlates well
Speaker 2: with doing a relatively effective job at the debate, although
Speaker 2: again he was also hamstrung by not wind to deny
Speaker 2: that Trump's an election denier. I'm using a double negative, right,
Speaker 2: but not willing to admit that Biden won in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Very inexperienced campaigner. He ran one, just run in and
Speaker 2: won just one election in his lifetime. And the decision
Speaker 2: was made apparently after intervention from like the Trump kids,
Speaker 2: and at a time when Trump was writing really high
Speaker 2: in the polls. This is when he'd just been almost assassinated,
Speaker 2: when Joe Biden was still trying to run as a candidate.
Speaker 2: But after the debate, and I think they just thought
Speaker 2: they're going to run away with this and we'll cement
Speaker 2: our legacy. And that was a bad decision too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that we can I agree that
Speaker 1: it was a bad decision for Trump, but I think
Speaker 1: that another kind of element of that good decision, bad
Speaker 1: decision is forceight, right, like being willing to think that, oh,
Speaker 1: Biden might not be the person I'm running against, so
Speaker 1: kind of failure to look ahead, failure to consider the
Speaker 1: possibility that Kamala Harris might actually be the person that
Speaker 1: you're running against. It does seem like the Trump campaign,
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before, really drops the ball on this.
Speaker 1: So that's another bad decision in terms of campaign planning.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that has to do with,
Speaker 1: you know, over confidence with the people he surrounded himself with.
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure what was behind that, but it
Speaker 1: does seem like a major oversight in terms of campaign planning.
Speaker 1: And that was another decision point, you know, when he
Speaker 1: picked jd. Vance, it was clear that Biden, you know,
Speaker 1: was not necessarily going to stay the presidential choice for
Speaker 1: the Democrats and Republicans.
Speaker 2: I don't think believe that. I think they thought, well,
Speaker 2: there he's Trump of the Democratic Party, and I think
Speaker 2: Republicans underestimated Democrats desire to win elect the fuck loss
Speaker 2: of shit up right, But like Democrats know how to
Speaker 2: look at polls showing Biden behind in every swing state
Speaker 2: and there's a sizable minority of polling spinners and deniers
Speaker 2: in the party. But cooler heads and stander heads prevailed.
Speaker 2: But you want to go back, let's go way back
Speaker 2: to March twenty twenty three. I think I'm still working
Speaker 2: at ABC News at that point, kind of half acidly
Speaker 2: and uh, because the writing is on the wall, and
Speaker 2: the writing was also on the wall for Joe Biden
Speaker 2: being really fucking old. And to be fair, the times
Speaker 2: when Biden consistently began to trail Trump and head to
Speaker 2: head poles was later in twenty twenty three. By fall
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, all these poles from and it's too
Speaker 2: early to look at polls, et cetera, but like these
Speaker 2: poles are coming out showing that Biden is now trailing
Speaker 2: Trump again a year plus and advance doesn't mean that much.
Speaker 2: But also that like depending on pole you look at,
Speaker 2: like eighty percent of Americans say he's too old and
Speaker 2: you have concerns about his ability to like effectively serve out.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, how many Americans.
Speaker 2: Eighty seventy eighteen zero seventy's that's a big percent. Kings
Speaker 2: Kings versus Queen's you like to being on the eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, that's pretty good. But Biden decided that he
Speaker 2: was going to hit a two outer and decided that
Speaker 2: he was going to run for election again. But in
Speaker 2: March twenty twenty three, Democrats eased his path by announcing
Speaker 2: there would be no primary debates. I'm sure envisioning, you know,
Speaker 2: Mary and Williamson and Biden and a circus or whatever
Speaker 2: that would have been. So, I know, good decision or
Speaker 2: bad decision.
Speaker 1: Horrible decision. I think this was probably one of the
Speaker 1: worst decisions they could have made. If we had had
Speaker 1: primary debates. I think that a lot of Biden's weaknesses
Speaker 1: would have come out immediately, right we wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: to wait until his debate with Trump. And by the way,
Speaker 1: Democrats absolutely knew this, which is why there were no
Speaker 1: primary debates, right like they already I think maybe they
Speaker 1: didn't know it was going to be such a disaster,
Speaker 1: but I think they knew that he wasn't going to
Speaker 1: hold his own in all in all respects. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was already not doing much media, like, I don't
Speaker 1: know you're going to push back. You don't think that
Speaker 1: they knew that he was gonna not be a good debater.
Speaker 2: I think first of all, Democrats, whatever they're doing behind
Speaker 2: the scenes, managed to convince that there was no credible
Speaker 2: opposition to Biden. Mary and Williamson. I actually went throughte
Speaker 2: no offense to Mary and Williamson and Dean Phillips, but
Speaker 2: xxx there wasn't a serious primary, and he both responded
Speaker 2: Dean Phillips like, ah, no offense taken, and Mary on
Speaker 2: Williams it's like, I do take fam, I'm a serious
Speaker 2: candidate for president. She's like a mid Atlantic act. It's
Speaker 2: like newscast. I can't. I don't know in never mind,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to do that those but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think to have Biden up on stage with the
Speaker 2: Maryam Williamson wouldn't have accomplished very much. And Democrats kind
Speaker 2: of live in fear of they confuse cause and effect.
Speaker 2: It's what happened generally speaking, what happens that when you
Speaker 2: have a primary challenge, that party loses. The reason why
Speaker 2: it is the only time you have a primary challenge
Speaker 2: is when a candidate is going to lose anyway, so
Speaker 2: he's vulnerable and and you're trying to get voters under alternatives,
Speaker 2: So you're confusing cause and effect there. And look, Democrats,
Speaker 2: I mean the rumors before twenty twenty two, Carolyn Maloney,
Speaker 2: my former congresswoman, went out and said, oh yeah, everyone
Speaker 2: knows Biden's going to retire. He's a one term president.
Speaker 2: And then I think the reporting on this is still
Speaker 2: not entirely clear on whether Biden was leaning toward retirement
Speaker 2: and then changed his mind, or if he had never
Speaker 2: announced any plans, or if it's like, fuck these people,
Speaker 2: you know, they can't make me retire. I'm the president
Speaker 2: of the United States. And then but but anyway, Democrats
Speaker 2: had had this relatively good mid term and made a decision,
Speaker 2: we want to clean our hands of anything that could
Speaker 2: muck up this coronation. I mean, they thought, you go
Speaker 2: back and look at this, right, they thought, oh my god,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get another Biden Trump rematch, and we won
Speaker 2: that last time. So this is awesome. This is great.
Speaker 2: And then after a nine percent inflation and eighty one
Speaker 2: years old and some major increase in illegal undocumented if
Speaker 2: you prefer immigration across the Mexican border, that's a pretty
Speaker 2: tough electoral environment and you probably need a stronger candidate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you that. Like, if we look
Speaker 1: back on any one decision, Biden's decision not to retire
Speaker 1: and say, you know, I'm not seeking a second term
Speaker 1: is probably the single most pivotal decision of this whole campaign,
Speaker 1: something that let's dovetail that with the debate decisions. So
Speaker 1: the timing of the debates and that first debate, you
Speaker 1: know that I watched in fetal position between President Biden
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump, where that was kind of the beginning
Speaker 1: of the end if we look at it that way.
Speaker 1: So changing the debate schedule and having that debate when
Speaker 1: it happened, I would say, you know, it was probably
Speaker 1: a good decision for the campaign because it actually forced
Speaker 1: their hand. But let's talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2: It's like when you think you're bluffing and your opponent
Speaker 2: calls you with the worst hand. It turns out it
Speaker 2: was a value. But so look, the reporting is still
Speaker 2: when Biden made that move, or his campaign made that move,
Speaker 2: I kind of wrote, like, you know, the one nice
Speaker 2: thing this touch Democrats is that if Biden is so
Speaker 2: bad he has to drop out, then finally you have
Speaker 2: some option value to get rid of him. I don't
Speaker 2: tend to think that his team was doing that on purpose.
Speaker 2: I think they just were like, we have to try something.
Speaker 2: We've been behind the polls from months, and the media
Speaker 2: narrative is not changing. I mean, if there is reporting
Speaker 2: post facto, if Maggie Haberman writes a book or something
Speaker 2: that says, actually, someone in the Biden office was trying
Speaker 2: to get him out and this is their secret plan.
Speaker 2: Because but I don't think there's been any reporting on that.
Speaker 2: So it's a decision that I guess worked out well.
Speaker 2: I mean, Democrats do have this almost fifty to fifty
Speaker 2: chance with Harris they wouldn't have had with Biden. I
Speaker 2: think we'd be talking about, like, you know, hey, can
Speaker 2: five percent chances happen and things like that. Right, However,
Speaker 2: there's another hidden consequence to Harris, which is that so
Speaker 2: Biden didn't just ask for an early debate, he also
Speaker 2: blew up the three debates that had originally been scheduled
Speaker 2: for the counts by the Commission on Presidential Debates. I
Speaker 2: believe we're in October. Maybe one was in late September
Speaker 2: and then two in October. I don't remember exactly, but
Speaker 2: the normal timing of the campaign. So you went from
Speaker 2: having three debates to two, one of which was taken
Speaker 2: up by Biden. And so no Harris, in one of
Speaker 2: her strongest formats, only has one debate. I mean, Harris's
Speaker 2: best polling period of the whole campaign was after that
Speaker 2: first debate and her honeymoon period. But like the first
Speaker 2: and only debate and like lost any leverage to claim
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, once you blew up the calendar,
Speaker 2: then you can't really make hay of the fact that,
Speaker 2: like Trump is also very unreliable and he didn't go
Speaker 2: to the GP primary debates. He had lots of gripes
Speaker 2: with a Commission on Presidential Debates last cycle, he might
Speaker 2: have been very strategic and not cared about like the
Speaker 2: reputational risk from looking like you're ducking a debate. But
Speaker 2: like if Kambal Harris had another debate last week, I
Speaker 2: think this might have been a meaningfully different race. And
Speaker 2: the fucking Biden people fucked that up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's just I don't know, I don't know, Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's sum this up. Obviously, there are lots of
Speaker 1: moving parts to this debate decision, but let's come to
Speaker 1: a net assessment. Nate, what do you think in terms
Speaker 1: of kind of the the end result the decision of
Speaker 1: the Biden campaign to rearrange the debate schedule. Have that
Speaker 1: one earlier debate, you know, blow ups of the later
Speaker 1: debates net positive net negative. Good decision, bad decision?
Speaker 2: Are we focusing on process or not? Or results?
Speaker 1: Maria working on process?
Speaker 2: Don't we tellt people? Then it was a terrible decision
Speaker 2: because if they actually thought that was going to make
Speaker 2: Joe Biden look good and the stupidt fucking people in
Speaker 2: the history of the world, well not just the politics.
Speaker 1: Now, I think we have to focus on process. And
Speaker 1: we're taping this Tuesday, October twenty ninth. We don't know,
Speaker 1: right we cannot be outcome oriented right now. We know
Speaker 1: that what happened in terms of the Biden campaign, but
Speaker 1: we don't know what that means for the election.
Speaker 2: We do know that they improved terros gives Democrats, to
Speaker 2: my estimation, double the chances roughly are more than that, right,
Speaker 2: So like, so that part of the decision worked out
Speaker 2: well for them. I guess if she loses by less
Speaker 2: than nobody really cares, I suppose. But so in a
Speaker 2: poker tournament where second place gets like eighty percent of
Speaker 2: first place money or something, right, it could be president
Speaker 2: time you alternate round up to like it's a landslike
Speaker 2: it and be like five days Tuesday, So HAIs be
Speaker 2: president Tuesdays Wednesdays, and I think Trump likes to play
Speaker 2: golf on Saturday, so let's give Harris Saturday too.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. But yeah, now, I
Speaker 1: think we do have to focus on process rather than outcome,
Speaker 1: because as poker players, as people who talk about decision making,
Speaker 1: that's the only way that you can that you can
Speaker 1: actually evaluate the decision quality. And in a case like this,
Speaker 1: where there are so many moving parts, I think that
Speaker 1: that that it has to be the swinging net and
Speaker 1: determination bad process.
Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that moment when Biden drops out
Speaker 1: and Harris very very quickly becomes the presumptive not money.
Speaker 1: I know that at that point night you were talking
Speaker 1: about potentially doing kind of this mini primary. That's not
Speaker 1: what happened. So let's talk about that decision to go
Speaker 1: straight from Biden to Harris.
Speaker 2: I advocated at the time for having a mini primary,
Speaker 2: and some other Democrats did that as well. I think
Speaker 2: in retrospect that was naive. Maybe not because it has
Speaker 2: been a baddie in theory, but like in practice, you
Speaker 2: have the vice president in a party that doesn't particularly
Speaker 2: like nominating white men, she did a very good job
Speaker 2: by all accounts, of understanding that Biden was in trouble
Speaker 2: and consolidating her support and you know, having her chips
Speaker 2: ready to cash in the minute of the cashier's window open,
Speaker 2: maybe a few minutes beforehand. Maybe she was she was
Speaker 2: first on the elevator to the to the to the
Speaker 2: win cashier before even checking out of her hotel room.
Speaker 2: Maybe inkling is something, and so you kind of have,
Speaker 2: you know, so if you have the following options, right,
Speaker 2: Harris wins in thirty six hours, or you have everyone
Speaker 2: agrees that we should have this primary process, or you
Speaker 2: have you have a week's long fight and then Harris wins. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we can agree that, like the
Speaker 2: third decision is the worst decision, and maybe the second
Speaker 2: decision wasn't possible, therefore you get the first decision. But
Speaker 2: again that the timing matters here. Even a few earlier
Speaker 2: weeks of a Biden announcement might have given things people
Speaker 2: a few more options. So I mean, this one I'm
Speaker 2: more forgiving of. But again it comes back to Biden
Speaker 2: should have left the race earlier, and at first of
Speaker 2: you as well, she doesn't really have to go through
Speaker 2: like a normal campaign, and maybe that's helpful. She won't
Speaker 2: get enough scrutiny. July August, four and a half months
Speaker 2: is plenty enough time for scrutiny. And her campaign kind
Speaker 2: of ran on this premise that we can just kind
Speaker 2: of run off the fumes of brat summer and like
Speaker 2: and didn't find a second gear, and like again, like
Speaker 2: the problem is, like all these fucking things are like foreseeable,
Speaker 2: Like all these things I've like criticized in real time
Speaker 2: and they worked out badly, and like and like you
Speaker 2: know that she needs second gear. People gonna ask, what's
Speaker 2: the issue? Why are you know you want change? But
Speaker 2: you're the incumbent vice president? Like how's that work? Harris?
Speaker 2: And like the fact that she goes on interviews and
Speaker 2: gets asked, what's one thing you do differently than Joe Biden?
Speaker 2: And she can't asker that fucking question, Like what the
Speaker 2: fuck is going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And people thought she'd be a C minus candiate
Speaker 2: and she's been a B minus. Right, she might win
Speaker 2: because Trump is unpopular, She'll probably have a good ground game.
Speaker 2: Trump steps in his own shit a lot, right, But
Speaker 2: I think you cannot like quote unquote objectively say that
Speaker 2: she's like run a great campaign, you know, maybe a
Speaker 2: B can eight and D campaign that averages out to
Speaker 2: see and people, though should be worse than that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, luckily for Democrats, she certainly has improved, Like
Speaker 2: her public speaking in like teleprompter settings, right, she was
Speaker 2: She's a very good debater, so she has some attributes
Speaker 2: and she and she you know, United Democrats around her.
Speaker 2: So she's done some good things. Her convention speech was good.
Speaker 2: But the things that are less about the candidate and
Speaker 2: more about the campaign, and the fact that the campaign
Speaker 2: is not prepping the candidate for that question, I just
Speaker 2: I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think I think those are all valid points.
Speaker 1: And who knows, there's still a week left. Maybe all
Speaker 1: of a sudden we'll get clear answers, uh and and
Speaker 1: some issues. But what about you know, we're talking a
Speaker 1: lot about the democratic decisions, and we've talked about JD. Vance,
Speaker 1: But what about the decision to nominate Trump? Again, Like,
Speaker 1: what what do we think about that? Obviously we do
Speaker 1: not know the results of the race, but you know
Speaker 1: you just mentioned and his popularity. Good decision, bad decision there?
Speaker 1: You know, there were other choices, And I think the
Speaker 1: Republican Party made a very conscious decision that you know,
Speaker 1: they were going to kind of go into the Trump direction,
Speaker 1: the Trump camp, that they were going to be kind
Speaker 1: of the Party of Trump instead of any number of
Speaker 1: directions that that could have happened at that stage, especially
Speaker 1: since he had lost the last election. So what do
Speaker 1: we think about that and what do we think about
Speaker 1: that decision process. That's something that is not talked about
Speaker 1: nearly as much.
Speaker 2: That's because it wasn't a decision. It was the voter's decision.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, the one thing Republicans could have done
Speaker 2: is that when Trump was impeached, they could have voted
Speaker 2: to convict him in the Senate, in which case he
Speaker 2: would not be eligible. You need a two thirds majorities,
Speaker 2: you have to have a lot of Republicans come on board,
Speaker 2: in which case he is not constitutionally eligible to be
Speaker 2: president ever again. So that's a point at which they
Speaker 2: could have. But like everyone ran, Mike Pence Ran, the
Speaker 2: then popular governor of Florida run. His said, is ran,
Speaker 2: Nikki Aleey the only half decent candidate in the bunch?
Speaker 2: Frankly ran. It's a star studded field by objective metrics
Speaker 2: and like, and the voters overwhelmingly picked Trump. I mean,
Speaker 2: what Nickie win should win Vermont. There's something DC which
Speaker 2: is better than I thought the over under it was
Speaker 2: probably zero and a half states. So I I mean,
Speaker 2: would they be off with a more normal candidate? I
Speaker 2: mean yes, on the one hand, I mean when you
Speaker 2: had Hailey versus Biden polls, Hailey and the more quality
Speaker 2: polls was doing significantly better than Trump. At the same time,
Speaker 2: it's a little bit like if a if a dog
Speaker 2: had wings that could fly. I mean it's like kind
Speaker 2: of like the Republican Party of today is not capable
Speaker 2: of not nominating Trump if Trump is on the ballot.
Speaker 2: I mean, it just wasn't even close in any of
Speaker 2: these things. It's by the way, nobody trying. And you
Speaker 2: could blame like Ron DeSantis for like being oh cozy
Speaker 2: up to Trump and not saying bad things about it,
Speaker 2: and then magically something happens and I win. I mean,
Speaker 2: he has an aged well his strategy, but like it
Speaker 2: just what, it's what the voters decided.
Speaker 1: No, I I right, obviously, I was just kind of
Speaker 1: talking about earlier kind of rallying around Trump and like
Speaker 1: deciding that this was, you know, this was the way
Speaker 1: to go, rather than kind of trying to distance themselves
Speaker 1: from Trump way back when after January sixth, after you know,
Speaker 1: or even you know, the impeachment, as you said, like,
Speaker 1: there were points in time where I think the party
Speaker 1: could have made different decisions in to not And we'll
Speaker 1: see how that turns out. But I think that that
Speaker 1: is that does say something. So I think where we
Speaker 1: come out on this is that it's complicated. Right, As
Speaker 1: with everything, there are lots of good and bad decisions.
Speaker 1: But if Kamala Harris loses the election next week, I
Speaker 1: think we've crowned the single worst decision. This will be
Speaker 1: squarely on President Biden's shoulders for not deciding to step
Speaker 1: away from the race and say that he was not
Speaker 1: going to be running for a second term. Do you
Speaker 1: agree with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, That's the core fact of his campaign.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's not as though people thought Harros
Speaker 2: was a great candidate before and look, they did make
Speaker 2: that decision, right right. I mean, so Biden running was
Speaker 2: the worst decision. Replacing him was the best decision by
Speaker 2: either party in the campaign. Trump's worst decision, I guess
Speaker 2: JD Van Actually maybe maybe the campaign the convention speech
Speaker 2: where he had just gotten assassinated in the first half
Speaker 2: an hour of the convention different a softer side of Trump,
Speaker 2: and then he just rambles for an hour, right, you know.
Speaker 2: I you know, he wasn't very prep for the debate
Speaker 2: with Harris. Maybe he shouldn't have accepted this early debate
Speaker 2: from Biden because that gave Biden a chance to skate
Speaker 2: free her Democrats chance to skate free from Biden. So
Speaker 2: I don't think it's it's not a campaign where you
Speaker 2: would go and give everyone high marks.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think that with the Harris campaign, with
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, we have one clear absolute worst decision
Speaker 1: and one clear best decision. With a Trump campaign, we
Speaker 1: have a lot of bad decisions, but unclear which one is,
Speaker 1: like the worst decision. They didn't do anything as a
Speaker 1: gregious as the Democratic camp when it came to you know,
Speaker 1: when it came to the Biden decision. But let's see
Speaker 1: what happens. Let's see what happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can brow there. It's still approximately fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1: Race and it's still yep, it's still approximately fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1: So after the break night. Let's uh, let's talk quickly
Speaker 1: about the model quick.
Speaker 2: Break and then a quickie little model horse race segment.
Speaker 1: All right, one week to go, Nate, What are the
Speaker 1: models saying? I know we're fifty to fifty, but are
Speaker 1: you seeing movement? Are you seeing any anything important? Kind
Speaker 1: of where where are we and what's happening?
Speaker 2: Valleatest numbers Tamala Harris.
Speaker 1: Every time you need, you need to get a new
Speaker 1: voice going.
Speaker 2: I love Kamala Harris has a forty five point three
Speaker 2: percent chance of winning the electoral college.
Speaker 1: Are you trying to be the AI version of yourself?
Speaker 2: You see, you have these automated we're dating ourselves as
Speaker 2: automated and a seventy one point four percent probability of
Speaker 2: winning the popular vote. It's basically fifty five forty five
Speaker 2: Trump or fifty four forty five with a small chance
Speaker 2: of a tie. Um, it's been a little weird. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: it's gradually drifted to Trump over actually a fairly long
Speaker 2: period now. And you know, two and every three days
Speaker 2: Harris has lost ground on the forecast since since roughly
Speaker 2: early October. You know, it looks like you could stabilize
Speaker 2: a bit. Maybe I don't think we're gonna don'tink we're
Speaker 2: gonn gonna learn very much in this last week of
Speaker 2: the polling. In fact, I kind of trust polsters lest this.
Speaker 2: They all every time a polster, Oh, every state is
Speaker 2: is just plus one, every little every single state to tie. No,
Speaker 2: you're fucking hurting, you're cheating, you're cheating. Your demos aren't
Speaker 2: all gonna come out at exactly one point leads when
Speaker 2: you're sampling eight hundred people over dozens of surveys. You
Speaker 2: are lying. You're putting a fucking figure on the scale.
Speaker 2: I will not name names, but some pulsters are really
Speaker 2: bad about this, all these all these gop leaning for
Speaker 2: it's always, oh, we're not going on too far on
Speaker 2: a limb. Trump. It's just Trump plus one in Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: every fucking single time. No, it's how fucking polling works.
Speaker 2: That's not how that's not how polling is supposed to work.
Speaker 2: There's a margin of.
Speaker 1: Tell us how you really feel, so you get.
Speaker 2: Hurting and like everyone just saw well, I mean, basically,
Speaker 2: the posters are fifty to fifty is a forecast, because
Speaker 2: not all base rates are fifty to fifty, right, The
Speaker 2: posters are just fucking punting, except the New York Times,
Speaker 2: it actually has balls, right, The polster's just fucking punting
Speaker 2: on this election for the most part. I mean not
Speaker 2: just the New York Times. There are some of the
Speaker 2: other high quality polls will actually publish numbers that surprise
Speaker 2: you once in a while. If a polster never publishes
Speaker 2: the numbers that surprises you, then it has no value.
Speaker 2: Information that has no potential to be surprising has no value.
Speaker 2: Should already be kind of like priced into your worldview.
Speaker 2: We're kind of priced into like the model in my case,
Speaker 2: the model lab become one in the last week of
Speaker 2: the election. But look, all seven swing states are still
Speaker 2: polling within it looks like a point and half here.
Speaker 2: Maybe Trump's leads up to almost two points in Arizona. Yeah,
Speaker 2: two points in Aeras. So everything's pulling within two points.
Speaker 2: And Hare's got a good poll in Arizona that we
Speaker 2: haven't encounted for yet, right, so within two points. Doesn't
Speaker 2: take a genius to know that if every swing states
Speaker 2: a tie, that the overall forecast is a tie. You know,
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania is at one state though, if you just add
Speaker 2: up the states where where Harris leads then she is
Speaker 2: one state short. She is zero point four points behind
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. And guess who is the governor of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Maria start with an s.
Speaker 2: John Fetterman, No, he's a center from Pennsylvania. Uh, Bob
Speaker 2: Casey No. The other say two senators Actually in every
Speaker 2: if the polls are exactly right, then actually, uh, it
Speaker 2: says even in Nevada. So then Nevada is tied. I
Speaker 2: don't know what happens there. They go play roulette. I
Speaker 2: think is the rule of Nevada if it's tied, and uh,
Speaker 2: but Harris would come up one state short, and that
Speaker 2: state's name is Pensylvania. But again, so if you're if
Speaker 2: you really are going over it with like an incredible precision,
Speaker 2: but you don't want to have that precision. Anyone who
Speaker 2: says that they know what's happening is is just is
Speaker 2: they're guessing. And half the fucking pundit industry just kind
Speaker 2: of they've always been on red, been on red or
Speaker 2: been on blue every time, and like and they just
Speaker 2: always make the same fucking debt and rationalize blues lucky. Well,
Speaker 2: you know it's blues turn Now I have blues on
Speaker 2: a Wayne Streak, and half the time they're right, and
Speaker 2: they're like, oh my god, I'm a God's gift to
Speaker 2: fucking election prognostication. Anyway, nobody knows anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, I'm in Nevada right now, and
Speaker 1: I'm actually you know, looking at the at the updates,
Speaker 1: and the Republicans are ahead in early mail in voting.
Speaker 1: It looks like Clark County, which is supposed to be,
Speaker 1: which is where I live, which is the kind of
Speaker 1: democratic wall. The mail in ballot rates are not good,
Speaker 1: and so you know, and both Trump and Harris are
Speaker 1: coming here on Thursday, so stay inside, don't drive anywhere
Speaker 1: on Thursday.
Speaker 2: Why is that you're at the fucking airport in Vegas?
Speaker 2: Like I love Vegas, but like why because there's lots
Speaker 2: of Campagig events there. Why is the the airport's so
Speaker 2: weird about this ground stop ship?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, but I made the mistake of
Speaker 1: flying out one day when one of the candidates I
Speaker 1: don't remember which was flying in and basically missed my
Speaker 1: flight because there was no going in or out of
Speaker 1: the airports and nothing whatsoever could be done about it.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, so so those are those are always
Speaker 1: fun moments. But yeah, it's it's close, it's it's a
Speaker 1: complete toss up, and I'm I'm glad that you are
Speaker 1: that your model with which you are one agrees with
Speaker 1: that because that's exactly what it feels like here. And
Speaker 1: I did think it was interesting by the way that
Speaker 1: they're both coming here as opposed to one of the
Speaker 1: other battleground states on Thursday. But but I guess that
Speaker 1: goes to show that, yeah, when you're when you're short,
Speaker 1: you're trying to really rally those undecided voters and they
Speaker 1: definitely exist here. But yeah, let's let's see what happens
Speaker 1: next week. We'll actually be doing two episodes, so we'll
Speaker 1: be dropping and episode for you right before the election
Speaker 1: on Monday, so stay tuned. We'll be be doing some
Speaker 1: real time visits to see what's happening with the election.
Speaker 1: But I think I would like to end today, and Nate,
Speaker 1: you can, you can end it however you want, but
Speaker 1: I would like to say, please, please, please, especially if
Speaker 1: you're in a swing state, but everywhere I just go
Speaker 1: out and vote. Please do that. I think that it's
Speaker 1: incredibly important exercise your right to vote. And yeah, that
Speaker 1: I think is a really important message for this week.
Speaker 2: Go out and vote. Don't don't. Don't let more money
Speaker 2: of the campaigns. They can't do anything with it at
Speaker 2: this point. I'm serious, like, yeah, save it for like
Speaker 2: a good cause that that money will do nothing for
Speaker 2: any candidate you're voting for. If you have to donate,
Speaker 2: donate to a local race, right, so vote. I agree
Speaker 2: with that, Maria, But save your money for a good cause,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: And on that note, let's see what happens next week.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
Speaker 1: out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kondikova.
Speaker 2: And byby Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
Speaker 1: is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
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Speaker 1: T