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Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us here on the Thursday
Speaker 2: edition of Balance of Power. You made it to Little Friday.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being here on Bloomberg Radio, on the
Speaker 2: satellite and on YouTube. Where you can watch us live
Speaker 2: right now search Bloomberg Business News Live. We've got the
Speaker 2: studio lit here in Washington and would love to have
Speaker 2: you along as the candidates head for the Swing States. Hey,
Speaker 2: happy Halloween. By the way, do you have your reflector
Speaker 2: vest handy? I had mine ready when I came in
Speaker 2: earlier today. Of course, that's not why Donald Trump was
Speaker 2: wearing one last night. Did you see him in the
Speaker 2: garbage truck. We'll talk about this more as the whole
Speaker 2: garbage flap continues. Are we gonna get four days out
Speaker 2: of this thing? You know, it's silly season when stories
Speaker 2: like these are driving the day, and it has a
Speaker 2: lot to do with the fact that the polls are tied.
Speaker 2: Another reason why the candidates are in the swing states
Speaker 2: today out West, at least mostly swing states. Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: leaving Wisconsin today to go to Phoenix to be in Reno, right, Arizona, Nevada,
Speaker 2: Swing States, Las Vegas later tonight, Vegas Baby. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: is strangely in Albuquerque. This is one that has been
Speaker 2: a bit confounding to people because well, New Mexico is
Speaker 2: not a swing state. You could argue that he's appealing
Speaker 2: to the Latino voting block that has been at an
Speaker 2: issue in this whole conversation about the word garbage, but
Speaker 2: New Mexico does not appear to be up for grabs.
Speaker 2: He will, however, be in Henderson, Nevada after that, Tim Walls,
Speaker 2: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Erie and Detroit. It's a pretty tight map.
Speaker 2: That's why we're back in these states every day. And
Speaker 2: as we look at this nationally, we can get down
Speaker 2: to the swing states. We do that every day here
Speaker 2: one point two point race depending on where you look,
Speaker 2: same story nationally. In fact, it has dwindled to a
Speaker 2: one point race based on research from IPSOS and as
Speaker 2: I mentioned, Cliff Young, the President US Public Affairs at
Speaker 2: Ipsos is with us right now in the studio.
Speaker 3: Cliff, great to see you. Five days to go. Your
Speaker 3: phone must be ringing.
Speaker 4: Stretch run. Actually, my fitbit is buzzing right now.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Could I hope it has good news for you because
Speaker 2: stress is running high right, Anxiety is running high, because
Speaker 2: uncertainty is running high, and it's only getting worse.
Speaker 3: It just couldn't be tighter, could it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. What we're telling everyone is that basically it's a
Speaker 4: fifty to fifty race. We think it's trending a bit Trump,
Speaker 4: but our level of conviction is very low. That's just
Speaker 4: a fancy way of saying we don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Well, the conviction aside. You are seeing a
Speaker 2: tightening and Donald Trump essentially closing the gap that we
Speaker 2: saw with some of the exuberant following the change.
Speaker 3: At the top of the ticket. Not a surprise, I
Speaker 3: suspect no.
Speaker 4: We've been seeing this narrowing at the national level over
Speaker 4: the last couple of weeks. We've seen the same in
Speaker 4: the swing states, where he's taken the lead in some
Speaker 4: of them, where Harris was leading in all of them
Speaker 4: at one point. We think it comes down to the
Speaker 4: critical issues inflation, inflation, inflation. He's more credible than Harris
Speaker 4: on that specific issue. That doesn't mean she's nestly going
Speaker 4: to lose, but I think that narrowing is because of
Speaker 4: that a very efficient and efficacious campaign.
Speaker 2: Interesting, you wonder if we had different running mates, if
Speaker 2: we had different opportunities, or if Kamal Airas had a
Speaker 2: longer run here, if these numbers might look any different.
Speaker 3: But these are the numbers. This is the race. You
Speaker 3: find most Americans as.
Speaker 2: Well say they are prepared to accept the outcome. That's
Speaker 2: a really important number here because we've also known that
Speaker 2: a majority of Americans are pretty worried about violence breaking
Speaker 2: out around this.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean both those ideas are resting in people's minds.
Speaker 4: On the one hand, they say that as Americans say
Speaker 4: they would accept the results of the raise, but if
Speaker 4: you push them on it, they're very, very worried about
Speaker 4: the about the situation post election.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, tell us what you learn though, all Americans
Speaker 2: eighty three percent, it's pretty big number.
Speaker 4: It's a big number. I mean, you know, Americans are
Speaker 4: they believe that there are rules you have to fillow.
Speaker 4: The rules is that there's rules of conduct, and that
Speaker 4: the loser should accept the results. But when you peel
Speaker 4: that onion a way, as I was saying before, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of trepidation, there's a lot of worried, there's
Speaker 4: a big there's a lot of belief that the system
Speaker 4: is not fair, it's rigged, and it's fraudulent.
Speaker 2: I'd like to ask you about methodology because I'm hearing
Speaker 2: more over the last couple of days that hey, maybe
Speaker 2: the sample is broken. We can only do so much
Speaker 2: based on the electorate that we think we have in
Speaker 2: the algorithms that we use. How do you treat your
Speaker 2: polls when you're trying to curve to make up for
Speaker 2: holes one way or the other in your sample.
Speaker 3: This is something that every pole does.
Speaker 2: It's why we have a margin of error at least partly, right,
Speaker 2: But how do how does it work?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, there's a lot to impact there. So I
Speaker 4: think there's two principle points that I make. The first is,
Speaker 4: it's not just about having a robust sample of the population.
Speaker 4: It's a robust sample of the population.
Speaker 3: That will vote.
Speaker 4: And so what we're trying to do is predict who
Speaker 4: will either show up on election day or who will
Speaker 4: vote early and that's a tricky issue. That's a challenge
Speaker 4: that we've always had historically, right. The more recent challenge
Speaker 4: has been we've missed Trump voters. We underestimated Trump the
Speaker 4: Trump vote in twenty sixteen by three points, in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty by three points. And the market, including its US,
Speaker 4: has worked very hard to fill those holes to try
Speaker 4: to get at those mega Trump voters that otherwise wouldn't
Speaker 4: participate in other things, including polls. We've done that both
Speaker 4: on the design side, trying to find where they are.
Speaker 4: And there's this what we call post survey adjustments. We
Speaker 4: weight the data trying to correct for.
Speaker 2: It after the red wave did not material realize did
Speaker 2: that curve change again? When you look back to the
Speaker 2: mid terms as we got ready for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: We should never use mid terms as any sort of
Speaker 4: leading indicator for anything, and maybe you don't. Yeah, we don't.
Speaker 4: I don't. As an analysts and an expert. Midterms are
Speaker 4: a different beast. So we really have to compare it
Speaker 4: to twenty twenty twenty sixteen and question whether our method
Speaker 4: is a robust method for capturing a population that votes
Speaker 4: in a general election.
Speaker 2: This is really helpful for people because the poles are
Speaker 2: a black box for people in a lot of ways, right,
Speaker 2: they don't understand necessarily what goes into it because we
Speaker 2: don't always talk about it.
Speaker 3: So this is a great opportunity.
Speaker 2: I've had many people say to me recently as well,
Speaker 2: or ask me, do you know anyone who's ever been
Speaker 2: reached by a polster? And the answers usually know, does
Speaker 2: it matter?
Speaker 4: That's a great question, and that's a very logical one.
Speaker 4: We are a country of three hundred and thirty five
Speaker 4: million people enough the probability to fall in any given
Speaker 4: poll is very, very low. In addition, you know, in addition,
Speaker 4: many of the polls, we actually recruit people into a
Speaker 4: panel like an episodes, and so we go to your door,
Speaker 4: we knock on the door, we recruit you in. We
Speaker 4: go to your door, Joe, we said, will you participate
Speaker 4: in theps this pole? And you say yes, and then
Speaker 4: we interview you multiple times after that. So you know,
Speaker 4: the probability of falling in any given pole is very low.
Speaker 4: A lot of us are using panels where we're not
Speaker 4: always going out there into the field. We're reinterviewing individuals
Speaker 4: that we recruited in interest, but ultimately The issue is
Speaker 4: our focus always is to have a robust sample that's
Speaker 4: representative of the population, and we use benchmarks like the Census,
Speaker 4: the demographics on the census to ensure that we're aligned
Speaker 4: and that our sample is.
Speaker 2: Robust, the cell phone and the internet. Not to sound
Speaker 2: like a really old guy, but I am change the
Speaker 2: game in polling. Is that still evolving because I hear, Look,
Speaker 2: there are people who still have landlines.
Speaker 3: They're getting phone calls from posters.
Speaker 4: It's in flux. Never before has the industry used so
Speaker 4: many methodologies. Pew Research Center did a study last year
Speaker 4: that showed that we're doing it by phone, a cell phone, landline, online,
Speaker 4: a recruited online, which is what IPSES does. Sometimes we're
Speaker 4: even knocking on the doors.
Speaker 3: And when you say we, IPSOS is doing all of.
Speaker 4: Those in one way or another.
Speaker 5: We're doing all those.
Speaker 4: Maybe not just for our electoral polling, but I'm talking
Speaker 4: about the industry more generally. Sure a snail mail as well.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty two, we use snail mail sending letters
Speaker 4: out to interview people in the States, and so we're
Speaker 4: using a whole host of methodologies at this moment of time.
Speaker 2: Want to get back to something that you mentioned here
Speaker 2: in terms of overcorrecting. Maybe for Donald Trump the three
Speaker 2: point miss mate silver tweets both Trump and Harris are
Speaker 2: a polling error away from a blowout. And he threw
Speaker 2: a couple of numbers in here. He said, if Harris
Speaker 2: wins the national popular vote by four points a two
Speaker 2: point error, she's favored for a blowout. Trump, on the
Speaker 2: other hand, favored for a blowout if he wins by
Speaker 2: just a point.
Speaker 4: Why is that That's because those margins really really matter
Speaker 4: in those key swing states. I mean, maybe we're talking
Speaker 4: about two hundred thousand votes in those seven states and
Speaker 4: ultimately airing one point one way or one point the
Speaker 4: other way represents that amount of votes. And so I
Speaker 4: absolutely agree with him. Yeah, we think we've corrected things,
Speaker 4: but we don't know. That's why I'm fifty to fifty
Speaker 4: leading Trump. Yeh, with low levels of conviction.
Speaker 2: Is it true though, that Democrats outperform in the popular vote?
Speaker 2: So you do need to see a couple of extra
Speaker 2: points for Kamala Harris than Trump to get the.
Speaker 4: Electoral Yeah, the rule of thumb is about three or four. Okay,
Speaker 4: you know there are a lot of people that vote
Speaker 4: Democratic in California, New York. Yeah, so ultimately to take
Speaker 4: the national to take the election, excuse me, you have
Speaker 4: to be about three or four at the national level.
Speaker 4: That's historical rules of thumb. There's a lot of argument
Speaker 4: and back and forth in debate whether that relationship still
Speaker 4: exists today. But I would say any analyst, anyone when
Speaker 4: looking at the election, should be looking for a three
Speaker 4: or four for Harris. She needs that to win.
Speaker 2: Yes, spending time with Cliff Young and ipsos is the
Speaker 2: early vote keeping you up at night because we see
Speaker 2: in some states it's only I think three where you
Speaker 2: get d's and rs and like, boy, we can actually
Speaker 2: make some assumptions here on who's pulling ballots.
Speaker 3: But then I here, wait a minute, you could.
Speaker 2: Have Republican ballots going for Kamala Harris is so much
Speaker 2: noisier you can't tell.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I wouldn't use it as a leading indicative of anything.
Speaker 4: Every electoral cycle it suggested something different. I'd be very
Speaker 4: careful when it comes to that. Really, let's look at
Speaker 4: the pre election polling and and you know, you know,
Speaker 4: step sit back, take a look on election day and
Speaker 4: be very careful looking the data coming in.
Speaker 2: So This is the question everybody wants to ask you.
Speaker 2: Right when are they going to call this thing? Are
Speaker 2: you bracing for days or weeks?
Speaker 4: If it's as close as we think it is, it'll
Speaker 4: be longer than days.
Speaker 2: I have longer than days because you need to Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: count all these early ballots. Arizona takes forever, but it
Speaker 2: might be recounts as well, recounts if it's too close
Speaker 2: and the you know, ultimately, my real worry.
Speaker 4: Is about confidence in the system. The closer it is
Speaker 4: and the longer it takes, the more likely it is
Speaker 4: for people to not trust the.
Speaker 3: Results about that.
Speaker 2: This is gonna be another test for the polling industry.
Speaker 2: I guess it is every four years, isn't it.
Speaker 4: It is? Once again it's fifty to fifty linning Trump
Speaker 4: with low levels of conviction.
Speaker 3: There we go, there's the man.
Speaker 2: So you know, everyone's got a gut check. We got
Speaker 2: Cliff Young's gut check. And I'm gonna do this every
Speaker 2: day between now and whatever they call this thing. President
Speaker 2: US Public Affairs IPSOS doing the good work for us
Speaker 2: here and I really appreciate it. As always, You've been
Speaker 2: wonderful through this whole cycle. Let's compare notes next week
Speaker 2: and see where we're at. Absolutely, Cliff Young for sure,
Speaker 2: I'm Joe, Matthew and Washington, and this is Balance of Power.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast Ken
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Speaker 6: It's pretty much true across the board when you look
Speaker 6: at national polls, but also when you look at the
Speaker 6: poles in the battleground states, almost all of them at
Speaker 6: this time show a statistical.
Speaker 3: Tie in our poll.
Speaker 2: None tighter, ye as, I remember than Wisconsin, that's right,
Speaker 2: which was a three tenths of one point race. So
Speaker 2: we'll call that a literal tie. I think for these purposes,
Speaker 2: that's why they were both there yesterday.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's why we add a valuable voice on
Speaker 6: Wisconsin to our program. Now we're joined by Democratic Congresswoman
Speaker 6: Gwen Moore, who represents the Badger State here on Bloomberg
Speaker 6: TV and radio. Thank you so much, Congresswoman for being
Speaker 6: with us. It's nice to hear from you again, Could
Speaker 6: you just give us your real read on how tight
Speaker 6: Wisconsin is at this time?
Speaker 7: Oh my god, it is so tight. But I am
Speaker 7: so encouraged by it is really really tight. But I'm
Speaker 7: really encouraged by what I am seeing visually on the
Speaker 7: ground regularly, seeing that our two hundred and fifty person
Speaker 7: a staff here is really getting people out, young people.
Speaker 7: I'm delighted to see millennials and first time voters out
Speaker 7: to vote, and that is very encouraging.
Speaker 2: Take us to school on geography, Congresswoman. When we bear
Speaker 2: down in our coverage on Tuesday night, we're going to
Speaker 2: be focused on your state like a laser. Where should
Speaker 2: we be looking as the time zones bring Wisconsin poll
Speaker 2: closings into the picture.
Speaker 7: Well, that's a good question. A lot of people always
Speaker 7: want to zero in on Milwaukee, where the largest aggregation
Speaker 7: of African Americans live, and Madison, of course, which is
Speaker 7: the capital of progressive politics in our state and in
Speaker 7: our country. But I want to point out to people
Speaker 7: that a Milwaukee and Madison combined, that's only one third
Speaker 7: of the voters in the entire state. And so that
Speaker 7: is why I think that the Harris Waltz campaign has
Speaker 7: gone everywhere. I would really when I look at Waukeshaw County,
Speaker 7: a place that has been ruby, ruby, ruby, red, we
Speaker 7: have found that every cycle Democrats have made greater and
Speaker 7: greater inroads into that community. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 7: the mayor of the city of Waukeshaw endorsed Kamala Harris
Speaker 7: and so you better look everywhere. I of course represent
Speaker 7: Milwaukee and much of Milwaukee County. So I am laser
Speaker 7: focused on getting our vote out and we've had As
Speaker 7: of yesterday, we had over seventy one thousand people voted
Speaker 7: in the city in Milwaukee, and that's about one third
Speaker 7: of what we expect. But we are every single day
Speaker 7: we're racking the numbers up well.
Speaker 6: And that's just a reminder of how many minds congressomen
Speaker 6: have already been made up. There may be very few
Speaker 6: left to change here. I do wonder, though, if you
Speaker 6: think some minds may have been changed by the comments
Speaker 6: Donald Trump made in Wisconsin at his rally in Green
Speaker 6: Bay last night, the suggestion that he will protect women
Speaker 6: audio Congressman, can you hear me? I have loved congresswoman
Speaker 6: all right, Well, get back work on that with Congressman
Speaker 6: Gwen Moore of Wisconsin. What I was going to say,
Speaker 6: Joe is call attention to the remarks made in Green
Speaker 6: Bay last night. Brett Farv was there with Donald Trump
Speaker 6: when he talked about protecting women. This is something we
Speaker 6: have been hearing more and more from Donald Trump as
Speaker 6: he does seem to be trying to reach that group
Speaker 6: of voters that he is not pulling as well with
Speaker 6: as Harris is. He's pulling better with men. Of course,
Speaker 6: he said I will protect women, whether they like it
Speaker 6: or not. In Congressoman if you can hear me. Now,
Speaker 6: this language from Trump, whether they like it or not,
Speaker 6: is that going to change the minds of the decided
Speaker 6: voters in Wisconsin.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's trying very you know what, it's really pathetic.
Speaker 7: Whether we like it or not, we are going to
Speaker 7: vote him out. I think that we are going to
Speaker 7: see a gender gap that is widening because of his
Speaker 7: reckless comments and because he's just incredibly unbelievable.
Speaker 5: It seems to me.
Speaker 7: That you know, his position on you know, the father
Speaker 7: of IVF. He is incredible. He is unbelievable, and we
Speaker 7: are going to continue to amplify those kind of comments
Speaker 7: to voters because we are going for every single vote.
Speaker 7: Donald Trump, of course is coming to Milwaukee tomorrow, but
Speaker 7: so is Kabla Harris uh. And she's bringing the Isisley
Speaker 7: Brothers with her MC light Glow, Rilla Cardi B and
Speaker 7: so there are We are really appealing to everyone now.
Speaker 7: In terms of people who are undecided, I don't believe
Speaker 7: that there are people who are undecided. I think there
Speaker 7: are people who love to vote on election day. I
Speaker 7: used to be that person until until COVID that just
Speaker 7: wanted to wait until election day to vote.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 7: And those people who have not voted, we are tracking them.
Speaker 7: We know where people are are eligible to voting, are
Speaker 7: not voting, and we're continuing to call and to knock
Speaker 7: on doors. We have droves of volunteers that knock on
Speaker 7: a regular basis and call on a regular basis. Where
Speaker 7: we're going. We're doing this thing until you know, one
Speaker 7: minute to eight on Tuesday night.
Speaker 2: Well, it seems that somebody is listening on the call.
Speaker 2: When it comes to early voting. Congresswomen, I'm looking at
Speaker 2: fresh numbers here from Wisconsin that jump off the page.
Speaker 2: We've seen some first day records in some important states,
Speaker 2: but no one expected early voting to top. As you
Speaker 2: just pointed out what we experienced in COVID enter Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: With five days out, you have already beat the number
Speaker 2: of in person absentee ballots cast in twenty twenty. As
Speaker 2: of this morning, seven hundred five three hundred twenty six
Speaker 2: voters have cast ballots in person. You're going to have
Speaker 2: an all time high. What does this suggest to you
Speaker 2: about the final result?
Speaker 7: Well, because people in Wisconsin understand our important role in
Speaker 7: standing up our democracy. You know, we understand as women
Speaker 7: the importance of protecting our civil rights. We understand even
Speaker 7: as men it hurts men. We understand the importance of
Speaker 7: protecting workers' rights, in terms of protecting social security, in
Speaker 7: terms of protecting pensions, in terms of protecting all of
Speaker 7: the things that we believe that with Project twenty twenty
Speaker 7: five that the president will roll back.
Speaker 5: You know, you know.
Speaker 7: Reasons that people like Elon Musk, for example, are so
Speaker 7: involved in the campaign want to destroy payments, for example,
Speaker 7: in salaries for overtime work, and men and women know
Speaker 7: that there is much at risk.
Speaker 2: You'll get your state back maybe in a week. Congresswoman,
Speaker 2: good luck with the ads and the speeches.
Speaker 3: And thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2: Gwen Moore from the fourth District of Wisconsin, the congresswoman,
Speaker 2: of course, has a good chunk of Milwaukee in her
Speaker 2: district where we actually have the RNC just a couple
Speaker 2: of months ago and what was a very different.
Speaker 6: Kaylie, Yeah, Joe Biden was still imagine that running back.
Speaker 3: It's hard to remember, actually, Yeah.
Speaker 6: And the first tempt on Donald Trump's.
Speaker 4: Life has had just out of business weekend.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Pretty incredible few months we've seen on this trail, and
Speaker 6: pretty incredible to realize that this is all coming to
Speaker 6: an end in five days, or at least we hope
Speaker 6: in five days. It could be you know, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 6: couple weeks, could stretch out for a little bit longer,
Speaker 6: but the home stretch is my point.
Speaker 2: Well, there does seem to be consensus. The more voices
Speaker 2: on this program. We don't know about any undecided voters.
Speaker 2: I think we're beyond that now. It's about getting people
Speaker 2: out and that includes you. You'll help us get there
Speaker 2: next week with special coverage on election like this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
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Speaker 6: We countdown, which is five days to go until election day,
Speaker 6: and both candidates making their pitches to groups where they
Speaker 6: are trying to have more strength. For Kamala Harris today
Speaker 6: she Chris crosses Nevada and Arizona and part that's a
Speaker 6: focus on Latino voters. The same could be said for
Speaker 6: Donald Trump, who is in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But for
Speaker 6: Donald Trump as well, it's about courting more women because
Speaker 6: Harris consistently has been pulling ahead of him in that
Speaker 6: gender group while she lags him on men. He's been
Speaker 6: talking a lot about rallies, at rallies about protecting women,
Speaker 6: and as we have mentioned a few times this hour,
Speaker 6: he talked about protecting women again last night in Wisconsin.
Speaker 8: The women of our country. I want to protect the women, sir,
Speaker 8: Please don't say that why. They said, we think it's
Speaker 8: we think it's very inappropriate for you to say. I say,
Speaker 8: why I'm president, I want to protect the women of
Speaker 8: our country. I said, well, I'm going to do it,
Speaker 8: whether the women like it or not. I'm going to
Speaker 8: protect them.
Speaker 2: And that is not all Donald Trump said in the
Speaker 2: rally in Green Bay. If you're with us on Bloomberg
Speaker 2: TV or YouTube, you see him wearing the reflector safety
Speaker 2: vest as he was trying to don the outfit of
Speaker 2: a garbage man, as he put it, following the flap
Speaker 2: over the use of the word garbage earlier in the week.
Speaker 2: This is getting to be extensive background here with several
Speaker 2: turns in this whole controversy. But Donald Trump also told
Speaker 2: supporters that they're on pace for a runaway victory barring
Speaker 2: any fraud. And it brings us back to the preamble here,
Speaker 2: the pre buttle, if you will, setting the stage potentially
Speaker 2: for what Donald Trump could call a rigged election having
Speaker 2: experienced this in twenty twenty. Shields are up and our
Speaker 2: signature panel is with us. Genie shanz No, Bloomberg Politics contributor,
Speaker 2: Democratic Analysts, political science professor at Iona University, alongside Rick Davis,
Speaker 2: of course, bloomber Letics contributed Republican strategist and partner at
Speaker 2: Stone Court Capital. Genie, what's your thought on this? Because
Speaker 2: people's minds go to the same place. He points to
Speaker 2: the poly market he tells supporters that he's leading in
Speaker 2: the polls when they're in fact, we've established over the
Speaker 2: course of this program already they're dead even but it
Speaker 2: helps to set up the narrative for post election.
Speaker 3: According to some Democrats, how do you see it?
Speaker 9: Yeah, And I think that's the big fear. I mean,
Speaker 9: we've just heard that Kamala Harris's team has gone and
Speaker 9: hired Mark Elias. He is a great attorney that helps
Speaker 9: Democrats and these kinds of challenges the obviously the GOP,
Speaker 9: the Republicans and the FRUM campaign have their own attorneys.
Speaker 9: Because I think we have entered now what we all
Speaker 9: knew was coming, which is days before the race and
Speaker 9: in the days after, there's going to be a host
Speaker 9: of legal challenges. And I think we can see that
Speaker 9: and this is nothing new. This sort of you know,
Speaker 9: election law fair if you will, has been coming since
Speaker 9: the two thousand campaign. We're twenty five years after that,
Speaker 9: and now we are living in a democracy in which
Speaker 9: almost every election is being challenged in court. And so
Speaker 9: it's not the way you want to run an election,
Speaker 9: but it's where we find ourselves. And I can just
Speaker 9: tell you I was talking to young people earlier today,
Speaker 9: many of them are concerned about what's going to happen
Speaker 9: after the election. And they are concerned because, like all
Speaker 9: of us, they listen to this rhetoric and they hear
Speaker 9: that people are saying these things are going to be challenged,
Speaker 9: and they fear that somebody or some group may take
Speaker 9: this too far.
Speaker 10: So I think it.
Speaker 9: Could be a few days after this election, and hopefully
Speaker 9: it doesn't last too too long.
Speaker 6: So it raises a couple questions for me, Rick, one
Speaker 6: being does the electorate, the broad electorate, kind of see
Speaker 6: through this, Maybe not the most loyal Trump supporters who
Speaker 6: still believe that he won in twenty twenty that something
Speaker 6: was wrong when no court, no factual evidence supports that.
Speaker 6: Or does it even matter if the electorate sees through it,
Speaker 6: because it's ultimately going to be decided not by them,
Speaker 6: but potentially in the courts.
Speaker 10: Well, ultimately it's always the voters who decide who gets
Speaker 10: counted as a voter. You want to have confidence that
Speaker 10: all qualified voters have their votes count on election day.
Speaker 10: The question is when is that decision going to be made.
Speaker 10: I mean, over the last two years, have will already
Speaker 10: been one hundred and sixty five lawsuits that would dictate
Speaker 10: who those voters are, who's eligible, what the voter rules
Speaker 10: look like. And we've heard an onslot of those things recently,
Speaker 10: and obviously post election they'll be even the more by
Speaker 10: both parties over one election and regularities, and two a
Speaker 10: lot of activity around vote counting, including what is likely
Speaker 10: to happen, which is almost every one of these targeted states,
Speaker 10: these swing states are within the mark error, certainly within
Speaker 10: one percentage point most of them. The leeds are only
Speaker 10: a tenth of a point or two tenths of a point,
Speaker 10: and those are likely to go to recounts. And each
Speaker 10: of these seven states have different recount laws, and each
Speaker 10: of those have different times that govern how long it
Speaker 10: takes to recount them. And so we may be sitting
Speaker 10: through seven recounts in addition to all the litigation.
Speaker 3: Wow, what a thought.
Speaker 2: You know, we talked so much about the weave that's
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, that we do the weave. How about the
Speaker 2: blur genie. This lawsuit that was filed in Pennsylvania two
Speaker 2: days ago is important. Donald Trump's campaign suing the Board
Speaker 2: of Elections in Bucks County because they said people were
Speaker 2: denied access when they tried to drop off their mail
Speaker 2: in ballots. To be clear, they don't do in person
Speaker 2: early voting there, but you can drop off your mail
Speaker 2: in ballot in person. It got to the point where
Speaker 2: a judge granted a preliminary injunction and extended the deadline
Speaker 2: for these ballots. But we have little stories like this
Speaker 2: cropping up around the country.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 2: When you put them into the mosaic blur, people start
Speaker 2: to say, hey, this whole system is broken.
Speaker 3: Isn't that the idea?
Speaker 9: It absolutely is. I like the idea of the blur.
Speaker 9: I don't like the idea, but it's a great descriptor, Joe.
Speaker 9: And that's precisely what Trump is trying to do. I mean,
Speaker 9: his argument all along has been I am going to win.
Speaker 9: The only reason I won't win is because the other
Speaker 9: side has stolen this election. And so this is how
Speaker 9: he does it. He talks about Bucks County, where we
Speaker 9: know the Bucks County officials on the ground said that
Speaker 9: was them trying to stick with voting hours, and it
Speaker 9: was something that the judge rightly extended those days. That
Speaker 9: should give us sort of a sense of calmness and
Speaker 9: a sense of you know that this system is working
Speaker 9: the way it should, but that's not how Donald Trump
Speaker 9: is presenting it. Also, he's you know, talking constantly about Lancaster,
Speaker 9: Pennsylvania two hundred twenty six hundred votes he said were stolen.
Speaker 9: Those weren't votes, Those are voter applications, right. He doesn't
Speaker 9: mention the fact that the GOP just won in the
Speaker 9: US Supreme Court with the case of the Governor of
Speaker 9: Virginia purging those sixteen hundred voters from the voter roles.
Speaker 9: So there's a lot of litigation out there. He is
Speaker 9: absolutely trying to do what you call blur this thing.
Speaker 9: So if he does lose, and it makes you wonder
Speaker 9: if that's what they're seeing in their internal polls, that
Speaker 9: he then will come back and say this was stolen.
Speaker 9: And that is what makes what's happening today and what's
Speaker 9: happened with Donald Trump so different. We do have a
Speaker 9: right to challenge elections when we are a part of them.
Speaker 9: We do have that absolute capacity in legal ability and right.
Speaker 9: But it is the fact that he will not promise
Speaker 9: that when this thing is over, he will accept a
Speaker 9: loss if that's what indeed occurs, that makes everybody so
Speaker 9: anxious about this thing.
Speaker 6: In addition to all of the legal issues happening around
Speaker 6: the vote itself. There also was heard in court today
Speaker 6: arguments in the case surrounding Elon Musk's million dollars sweepstakes
Speaker 6: to a registered voter. It's now moving to federal court
Speaker 6: after a state judge heard arguments earlier today. This, of course,
Speaker 6: is a million dollar a day sweepstakes rick that is
Speaker 6: being led by America Pack, which Musk has funneled millions
Speaker 6: and millions, tens of millions of dollars into and also
Speaker 6: has been charged with a lot of the ground game
Speaker 6: for Donald Trump. Do we have a sense of how
Speaker 6: maybe not the sweepstakes, but how the actual get out
Speaker 6: the vote effort is going with the fact that it
Speaker 6: has been outsourced by the Trump campaign.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I must admit I have a particular anis in this.
Speaker 10: I love the ground game activity. I've been making a
Speaker 10: lot of calls to Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada places that
Speaker 10: I still have some old friends who are in the
Speaker 10: political game operating, and to an individual, they indicate to
Speaker 10: me that the biggest disaster of the twenty twenty four
Speaker 10: campaign is going to be the America pack It's stewardship
Speaker 10: of the money that they've received, the conflicting, you know,
Speaker 10: demands that Eli Musk gives making them to do these
Speaker 10: turnout operations, the lack of coordination that they've had with
Speaker 10: political groups like the Party on the ground in virtually
Speaker 10: every one of the swing states. So would not I
Speaker 10: would be shocked if there's any evidence that the turnout
Speaker 10: operation is going well in any one state. And I
Speaker 10: will not be shocked if Donald Trump loses he blames
Speaker 10: it on Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: What do you make of that, genie.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of money to spend to be blamed
Speaker 2: for an electoral loss.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 9: And just to follow up on that, we heard about
Speaker 9: some people, some canvassers who said they were put in
Speaker 9: the back of a pickup truck. They didn't know who
Speaker 9: they were working for, they were threatened. I mean, it
Speaker 9: has gotten ugly on the ground. It is a hard
Speaker 9: thing to do, the ground game, as Rick knows better
Speaker 9: than anyone, and it takes time and it takes organization.
Speaker 9: Elon Musk has never exhibited any sense or ability to
Speaker 9: do this, And so I would say that I agree
Speaker 9: with the assessment that if this thing goes south for Trump,
Speaker 9: it's gonna be based probably on the ground game.
Speaker 6: Well, El Musk certainly is one of Trump's loudest surrogates. Genie,
Speaker 6: we just have about ninety seconds left. But if you
Speaker 6: look at Kamala Harris's prominent surrogates, we talked about Joe
Speaker 6: Biden's garbage gaff already this week there was President Barack Obama,
Speaker 6: former president, suggesting that black men who don't vote for Harris,
Speaker 6: we're doing it because of some kind of sex and
Speaker 6: sexism or misogyny. Then today what's making the rounds in
Speaker 6: conservative circles is Mark Cuban, another powerful surrogate for her,
Speaker 6: saying that Donald Trump is never around strong intelligent women.
Speaker 6: Are the surrogates doing more damage to her than helping
Speaker 6: her at this point?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think absolutely. In the case of Joe Biden,
Speaker 9: you hear every Democrat saying get him in the White
Speaker 9: House and keep him there and don't let him go
Speaker 9: before zoom. And I do think Kamala Harris could have
Speaker 9: came out tougher on that and distanced herself. It's one
Speaker 9: of the dangers of working with surrogates. I'm not sure
Speaker 9: that Mark Cuban statement will have as much traction, But
Speaker 9: the Joe Biden and definitely didn't help the campaign, all right.
Speaker 6: Jeanie Shanzano and Rick Davis, our signature political panel joining
Speaker 6: us on this Thursday, Thank you so much as always,
Speaker 6: and we still have much more ahead on balance of powers.
Speaker 6: We talk about the campaign and the ground game, the
Speaker 6: messaging they are putting out to try to turn voters
Speaker 6: out in these final days here, a lot of that
Speaker 6: messaging does also surround policy. For all of the attention
Speaker 6: paid to some of these more provocative one liners, if
Speaker 6: you will, they're still trying to sell their economic policy
Speaker 6: in particular, and we're going to take a closer look
Speaker 6: at that and where the economy is yep, absolutely heading
Speaker 6: into election day because this is it.
Speaker 2: We spent months asking where will the economy be when
Speaker 2: people vote? Here we are and Douglas holtz Echan will
Speaker 2: join us coming up next on the Fastest Show in Politics.
Speaker 2: Thanks again to our signature panel, and a lot more
Speaker 2: to follow here on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Alongside Kaylee Lines,
Speaker 2: I'm Joe Matthew. Have we mentioned there are five days
Speaker 2: to go?
Speaker 3: Oh and Happy Halloween. Thanks for being part of the
Speaker 3: show today only on Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens
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Speaker 2: This is a big data week and it matters because, well,
Speaker 2: presumably some people are still making up their mind on
Speaker 2: who they want to vote for. Maybe some people could
Speaker 2: have their minds changed. There's also a little FED meeting.
Speaker 2: I hate to remind you here it's right after the
Speaker 2: election next week, which makes us wonder as well. Kayley
Speaker 2: lines about potential volatility in this market if we don't
Speaker 2: get an early.
Speaker 6: Call, Well, yeah, there could be a major uncertainty around
Speaker 6: not just who wins the presidency, but who's going to
Speaker 6: control Congress. And then potentially you add monetary policy and
Speaker 6: certainty to you to all that potential fiscal policy uncertainty.
Speaker 6: It could be a pretty nasty cocktail. And a reminder
Speaker 6: that we're all in for.
Speaker 4: It next week.
Speaker 6: So thank you, Joe. Happy Halloween everyone. It's spooky out
Speaker 6: here as we consider though the economic data we got
Speaker 6: today that could inform that Fed decision next week and
Speaker 6: inform voters thoughts on the economy as they head to
Speaker 6: the ballot box. It's arguably trending in the right direction.
Speaker 6: PCEE two point one percent, almost right there, exactly at
Speaker 6: the federal reserves target.
Speaker 2: Pretty good reading, although a bit below forecast two point
Speaker 2: eight percent growth on GDP.
Speaker 3: This week we get jobs data tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Expected to have the lowest pre election unemployment rate Kley
Speaker 2: in twenty four years.
Speaker 6: So we want to get a picture of all of
Speaker 6: this and consider the economic policies being put forward still
Speaker 6: on the campaign trail, because we've gotten some new ones
Speaker 6: just in the last week or so. Douglas, while Deacon
Speaker 6: is with us now he is president at American Action Forum.
Speaker 6: Welcome back to Balance of Power, Sir, are always great
Speaker 6: to have. You can you just diagnose where the economy
Speaker 6: really is right now as election day is basically upon us.
Speaker 11: Well, I think the starting point is the third quarter
Speaker 11: GDP numbers, which were quite good, you know, year over
Speaker 11: year two point seven percent growth two point eight in
Speaker 11: the third quarter at an annual rate, bolstered by strong
Speaker 11: household spending and strong government spending. The only you know,
Speaker 11: Achilles Heel in that report is light on business fixed investments,
Speaker 11: something I always keep an eye on, but on the whole,
Speaker 11: a very strong report, and you compliment that with a
Speaker 11: big jump in consumer confidence early in October that suggests
Speaker 11: that the households are going to continue to be spending
Speaker 11: their money. You get a jobs report from ADP at
Speaker 11: two hundred thirty thousand jobs, another big number in the
Speaker 11: labor market, and then you get the PC report, and
Speaker 11: that's the only thing that makes me, you know, have
Speaker 11: a little pause, which is core PCE eas zero over
Speaker 11: year a two point.
Speaker 5: Seven has been stuck there for four months.
Speaker 11: And so if you look at inflation expectations a year
Speaker 11: out there two and a half to three, inflations at
Speaker 11: two and a half, which we've sort of settled into
Speaker 11: a two and a half percent rot And the question
Speaker 11: is will we see continued progress toward two percent or
Speaker 11: will the Fed essentially go on hold. But I think
Speaker 11: the right way to think about it, if you listen
Speaker 11: to the spooky list that you went through here at
Speaker 11: the lead in segment, the economy is not the spooky thing.
Speaker 11: It's the policy risk that's surrounded. If you're trying to
Speaker 11: figure out where you're going. It's all about what will
Speaker 11: the FED do, and in particular, what will the candidates do,
Speaker 11: who will win, and how will the FED have to
Speaker 11: react to, for example, a ten percent across the word tariff.
Speaker 5: That's hard to game that out.
Speaker 2: Does that mean we've got a quarter point in the
Speaker 2: bag for next week, Douglas? I ask you that because
Speaker 2: Joe Biden put out a statement on the PCEE data.
Speaker 2: He says inflation has now fallen to two point one percent,
Speaker 2: nearly at its two percent target, but we have more
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 11: I think that, you know, many presidents try to box
Speaker 11: the FED in good luck with that they're going to
Speaker 11: do their job. I was among those who was surprised
Speaker 11: to see them go fifty basis points and thought that
Speaker 11: when they did that, they really gave themselves the option
Speaker 11: to go more slowly later the day after the election,
Speaker 11: when it may not even really be settled and we've
Speaker 11: seen these recent strong data, it might be a good
Speaker 11: stay on hold.
Speaker 5: We'll see, Okay.
Speaker 6: So that's the monetary policy side of this equation. To
Speaker 6: get back to the fiscal side, though, which could obviously
Speaker 6: be dramatically impacted depending on who wins these many races.
Speaker 6: On Tuesday, Douglas, We've heard from Elon Musk and Donald
Speaker 6: Trump reiterating what Elon Musk said in the last week
Speaker 6: that he, if he is appointed the head of this
Speaker 6: Government Efficiency Commission or whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 6: could cut two trillion dollars in government spending. Is that
Speaker 6: really possible?
Speaker 5: I will be six to.
Speaker 11: Four and have a full head of hair before that happens.
Speaker 11: There's just no way. This is a nice talking point,
Speaker 11: but who is going to give him that authority? The
Speaker 11: President doesn't have the authority to give a private citizen
Speaker 11: an accent, say, go after.
Speaker 5: The federal agencies.
Speaker 11: The Congress that I states would have to pass a
Speaker 11: law to produce the commission that he could lead that
Speaker 11: had those authorities, and that is never going to happen.
Speaker 11: They created the programs that he's talking about cutting out,
Speaker 11: They put in place. The personality is talking about acting out. No,
Speaker 11: this is a campaign talk that should be interpreted as
Speaker 11: no more than campaign talk.
Speaker 2: Well, considering your former life at CBO, we thought maybe
Speaker 2: you could score this idea because Elon Musk told people
Speaker 2: in the crowd yesterday, fight if you're laughing, that's not
Speaker 2: a good sign because Elon Musk says, we're gonna be
Speaker 2: in it for some pain.
Speaker 3: Douglas, what's it gonna feel like?
Speaker 11: So if supposed you just did the exercise where you
Speaker 11: had a commission that could recommend things, they would have
Speaker 11: to recommend the near elimination of half the government in
Speaker 11: order to reset that two trillion dollars target they've taken
Speaker 11: off limits. So screamatic here. Remember the candidate Trump has
Speaker 11: said he's not touching those. Those are by themselves over
Speaker 11: half of nonasure spending over the next ten years. So
Speaker 11: you got to take on the other half of government
Speaker 11: and decimate it. I think some Republicans are going to
Speaker 11: want to hold on to the defense to I'm just guessing.
Speaker 11: And you know, it seems unlikely that you could get
Speaker 11: anything through Congress to enact these this commission's proposals. So
Speaker 11: you know, I'm now officially old. I remember the Grace Commission.
Speaker 11: I remember the great claims that were going to be
Speaker 11: made about how it changed the trajectory of the federal
Speaker 11: bureocracy forever. And as I sit here in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 11: it doesn't look like it did much and this won't either.
Speaker 6: Well, if we're just still gaming out like the hypothetical
Speaker 6: math here, even if you were to do all of that,
Speaker 6: could you pay for the tax cuts? Donald Trump has
Speaker 6: put forward the very long list of the tax either
Speaker 6: cuts or brakes. Even if you were to do all
Speaker 6: of that, get rid of the Defense Department or what
Speaker 6: have you.
Speaker 11: Look, look, there are so little specificity, and there's so
Speaker 11: there's one that happens every day, don't nobody's proposed today.
Speaker 11: I'm not sure we're going to have a tax base
Speaker 11: by tuesday. He has given away the store on a
Speaker 11: daily basis, so you know it's it's not it's nothing
Speaker 11: like a sound tax policy platform. He wants to simultaneous
Speaker 11: extend the twenty seven Act or the seventeen Act and
Speaker 11: do a bunch.
Speaker 5: Of other things. They're gonna have to.
Speaker 11: Step back and restart. And I guess you know, I
Speaker 11: understand campaigns. I've been on a campaign. I understand the
Speaker 11: politics of trying to collect votes as you go to
Speaker 11: the finish line. But it's important to recognize that he
Speaker 11: wants to get a deal on seventeen. That would be
Speaker 11: his signature accomplishment. Did it in his first term, renewed
Speaker 11: it in his second term. Every time he makes a proposal,
Speaker 11: let's not tax overtime, let's not tax let's get rid
Speaker 11: of the salt cap.
Speaker 5: He creates a constituency that.
Speaker 11: Makes it harder to extend, that makes it harder to
Speaker 11: renew it, and so he is working at odds with
Speaker 11: what he means next year.
Speaker 2: It is true the appropriations folks that we talk to
Speaker 2: are getting some anxiety every time Donald Trump announces another
Speaker 2: exemption at the podium here Kymlin Harris has had her
Speaker 2: share of them, is well Douglas, and as a creature
Speaker 2: of Washington, you know what, the conventional wisdom is, the
Speaker 2: House they say will turn democratic, the Senate will turn Republican.
Speaker 2: In that world, neither of them likely get any of
Speaker 2: their proposals passed, right.
Speaker 11: I think the New proposals, so you know, the Harris
Speaker 11: proposals on taxing capital gains and the like, they're non
Speaker 11: starters in that world. I think the Trump proposers are
Speaker 11: the same way. My concern is they will revert to
Speaker 11: form and just buy each other off, and we'll do
Speaker 11: the extended spending that the Democrats want, will extend all
Speaker 11: the task cuts without paying for him, and will be
Speaker 11: in a fiscal mess and so that's that's really.
Speaker 5: Worth looking out for.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, well you know.
Speaker 2: That's that is Halloween, right, Well, you want to you
Speaker 2: want to one up us on spooky?
Speaker 5: I think you one.
Speaker 11: No, But honestly, one of the things to watch for
Speaker 11: is when really pressed for time and it's gonna be
Speaker 11: tight next year, they got a lot going on, and yeah,
Speaker 11: not knowing really what to do, they revert to form
Speaker 11: and do what they did before. And they have done
Speaker 11: that before, so they can easily kick the whole decision
Speaker 11: out two years and.
Speaker 2: Try again Path of Least Resistance Douglas Holds seeking great
Speaker 2: to see you as always. Thanks for joining us today
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg TV and radio. We always have good conversations
Speaker 2: with you, Douglas because he can speak freely now that
Speaker 2: he's not running the CBO.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
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