Speaker 1: You're listening to The Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
Speaker 1: you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody, Welcome to the Buck
Speaker 1: Sexton Show. You know, people talk a lot about what's
Speaker 1: going on with the presidential election already, the primaries are underway,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have voting in about six months. What does
Speaker 1: the data tell us and what are we gonna be
Speaker 1: learning in the weeks and months ahead. Robert Kahaley is
Speaker 1: with us now. He is the CEO of the Trafalgar Group,
Speaker 1: polling and marketing group gurus if you will, in the
Speaker 1: realm of poling marketing. Robert, thanks for joining.
Speaker 2: Good to be here.
Speaker 1: So tell me, if you would, what what are we
Speaker 1: seeing right now that is significant? Other than on the
Speaker 1: Republican side, Trump has an enormous lead. Is that very
Speaker 1: different from other periods in the summertime? If we look
Speaker 1: at previous primaries where somebody was way ahead, and then
Speaker 1: you know, with this in the context, have we seen
Speaker 1: anything like this before? How How much is this sort
Speaker 1: of determinative at this point?
Speaker 2: One thing I can say for certain is no, we've
Speaker 2: never seen any of this before. There's not a lot
Speaker 2: of certainly his business, but that this is unique certainly
Speaker 2: one of them. Uh yeah, we've seen people have leads
Speaker 2: not usually this big, not usually over fifty percent on
Speaker 2: nationwide compared to all the other candidates, So that that's
Speaker 2: very historic, and that's just not something we're used to.
Speaker 2: What I think is what we're seeing more. It's more
Speaker 2: interesting now is kind of the reshuffling in the in
Speaker 2: the bottom of the pack, you know where for a
Speaker 2: long time we've had Trump at the top and then
Speaker 2: Desianus our back and then it's just been kind of
Speaker 2: a jumble. And what what we've seen recently is the
Speaker 2: emergence of Vivekraswami and Tim Scott. They seem to be
Speaker 2: kind of jumping ahead of a lot of the others,
Speaker 2: and you know, especially some like Haylu started early and
Speaker 2: kind of taking some of the steam away from them.
Speaker 1: Do we have some senses to what did the field
Speaker 1: look like on the Republican side in the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. I mean, I know, I'm kind of putting
Speaker 1: you on the spot, but you do polls for a living.
Speaker 1: How does this look compared.
Speaker 2: To that by the summer of twenty sixteen from.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Summer of twenty fifteen, go.
Speaker 2: Ahead, I knew you're gonna make it hard. Yeah, Trump
Speaker 2: was leading in a plurality in a lot of places,
Speaker 2: and there was this thought that that can't be real
Speaker 2: and that it's just a matter of time. So so
Speaker 2: many of these others just figured, hey, when the others
Speaker 2: get out, you know, it'll it'll kind of go away.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he definitely was leading. If you remember, he
Speaker 2: was center stage on most of the debates that happened
Speaker 2: in summer of twenty fifteen and the fall of twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: He was almost always at the top, usually with a
Speaker 2: little bit more than the third But that's it. So
Speaker 2: it wasn't this type of lead and that it wasn't
Speaker 2: there wasn't such a hard line. And again at that time,
Speaker 2: some of the most conservative voters were still for Crews
Speaker 2: because they didn't Trump. They didn't trust Trump to be conservative.
Speaker 2: And so some of Trump's most ardent supporters now in
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, where some of twenty fifteen were some of
Speaker 2: the people who were most saying, we can't trust them,
Speaker 2: this guy's not conservative. And in many ways you prove
Speaker 2: those people wrong.
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Speaker 1: six ' nine. Now have you have you been able
Speaker 1: to look at polls and run some numbers on DeSantis
Speaker 1: was doing pretty well in the beginning of this year,
Speaker 1: right the start of twenty twenty three, he had closed
Speaker 1: a lot of the gap. And then he announced and
Speaker 1: then the numbers started going in the in the other direction.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were going the other direction before then. I'd
Speaker 1: have to go back and look and check. But are
Speaker 1: you able to get a sense from from polling as
Speaker 1: to what happened?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the Santis campaign is kind of a
Speaker 2: lot like that college football team that everybody talks about.
Speaker 2: Main they had a great recruiting class, they're going to
Speaker 2: be awesome, and they're you know, pretty ran to the
Speaker 2: number three in the country of the first and the
Speaker 2: first game of the season comes in, like whoa, Well,
Speaker 2: maybe aren't they aren't so good? And what Trump Trump
Speaker 2: had If Dessantus had gotten in versus Trump right in
Speaker 2: late January early February, before the indictments and stuff started
Speaker 2: to happen, this will be a much more competitive race.
Speaker 2: But once that started to happen, and those people are
Speaker 2: still kind of up for grabs because there's still question
Speaker 2: as to whether the Santas was really going to get
Speaker 2: in and how long it was taken to why it
Speaker 2: was taking so long. Trump kind of took those people
Speaker 2: that were in between them that could have gone either way.
Speaker 2: And the more of the indictments came in, the more
Speaker 2: Trump was center stage. I mean, publicity is like it's
Speaker 2: to Trump like oxygen to a fire. The more publicity
Speaker 2: he gets, the stronger he gets. And it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, essentially being in an oj oj
Speaker 2: style covered car ride to turn himself in or whatever,
Speaker 2: it is that publicity help him. And that more than anything,
Speaker 2: more than any misstep on DeSantis's part or his campaigns,
Speaker 2: it was the publicity for Trump that gave Trump this advantage.
Speaker 1: Now what are we seeing at this point? What are
Speaker 1: you seeing in terms of the polls when it comes
Speaker 1: to the critical swing states in a matchup between Trump
Speaker 1: and Biden.
Speaker 2: Well, we've we've looked, we've looked at quite a few
Speaker 2: of these and we and we've looked at Biden versus Trump,
Speaker 2: and we've looked at at de Santis versus Trump, and
Speaker 2: what we have found is that media has done such
Speaker 2: a good job of demonizing DeSantis that there is no
Speaker 2: appreciable difference, and in most cases, Trump has a slight edge.
Speaker 2: What we do find in these swing states for the
Speaker 2: most part, whereas abortion was it was a big issue
Speaker 2: that kind of pushed its way into twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and most of the states it's kind of settled. And
Speaker 2: the situation where if you really want abortion to be
Speaker 2: legal in your state, it is, and if you really
Speaker 2: wanted some more restrictions, they got passed. And so this idea,
Speaker 2: the fear of what would happen and the result of
Speaker 2: getting rid of Row versus Wade, has now been overcome
Speaker 2: by the reality that it didn't change your life very much,
Speaker 2: depending upon which state you lived in. So you take
Speaker 2: that kind of big, big draw off the table, and
Speaker 2: then then we moved back to you know, kitchen table issues.
Speaker 2: Biden is dismal. We look at national security. People are afraid,
Speaker 2: they're afraid of China and Russia getting together, and Trump
Speaker 2: or Desantus has a little bit of an edge there,
Speaker 2: and then you you have this this dynamic of people
Speaker 2: that look at what's been happening and and they see
Speaker 2: that when they're when they're really scared, and that we
Speaker 2: asked them the question of do you think Ukraine would
Speaker 2: have been invaded by Russia if Trump was still president
Speaker 2: and in every swing state the answera is no. So
Speaker 2: this is idea that you know he you might not
Speaker 2: like a lot about him, but there's no question he's
Speaker 2: a strong leader. And right now, you know there's a vacuum,
Speaker 2: and when there's a vacuum for power and America doesn't
Speaker 2: post in post drink worldwide, we see what happens.
Speaker 1: And what about the RFK junior support in some of
Speaker 1: the polling on the Democrat side, what can you tell
Speaker 1: us about what the numbers indicate there?
Speaker 2: You know, RFK Jr. Is an absolutely outstanding, very entertaining character.
Speaker 2: The problem is his position owned vaccines, and his positions
Speaker 2: own so many things that make the medical establishment so
Speaker 2: crazy also make the Democrat establishment so crazy. Is virtually impossible.
Speaker 2: I would say that he can get above maybe twenty
Speaker 2: seven twenty eight with the Democrat primary, because I mean,
Speaker 2: you've probably got ten percent. The Democrats still wear a
Speaker 2: mask every day. So he's just not going to permeate
Speaker 2: with that issue being so salient and so much a
Speaker 2: part of his identity, He's going to hit a hard wall.
Speaker 1: What is in you know, I want to ask you this,
Speaker 1: if you can come back, I have to have a
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Speaker 1: just give me, give me an example of something you
Speaker 1: pulled recently that you just thought was just fascinating in
Speaker 1: terms of what you what you found.
Speaker 2: Well, in the wake of the what was happening with
Speaker 2: by the Light and what was happening with Target, we
Speaker 2: went out to the field and just asked people, have
Speaker 2: you ever participated in any type of a boycott? And
Speaker 2: we gave an answer of yes, I've participated in a
Speaker 2: boycott based on a based on a company or organization
Speaker 2: being too conservative, uh to you know, to old fashioned whatever.
Speaker 2: Or I participated in a boycott based on a company
Speaker 2: or organization being too much to the left to progress it,
Speaker 2: and you know, I've seen surves like this before. For
Speaker 2: the first time, the number of people who said they
Speaker 2: participated in a conservative boycott was about ten points higher
Speaker 2: than a progressive boycott. And that is just that's earth shattering.
Speaker 2: That's never happened before. There've never had a time in
Speaker 2: the past where conservatives were letting the strength of you know,
Speaker 2: of their financial power and their consumerism actually affect what
Speaker 2: they spend and what they do. And we're seeing the result.
Speaker 2: We saw how quickly Target started to suffer. We saw
Speaker 2: how we saw what's been happening to bud Light. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can even see a downturn after some of the
Speaker 2: things that were said about Chick fil A. I mean,
Speaker 2: it just it was there. And so that to me
Speaker 2: was very, very shocking. And you know, probably a good
Speaker 2: side that when both sides are activists and companies have
Speaker 2: every reason to just stay out of politics, when only
Speaker 2: one side is going to make a fuss, then it
Speaker 2: makes sense for a business to err on the side
Speaker 2: of doing things that doesn't upset the group that will
Speaker 2: raise raise a fit. So it actually helps to probably
Speaker 2: keep business out of so much of this stuff.
Speaker 1: Robert Kahley of the Trafalgar Group appreciate you being with
Speaker 1: us or the Trafalgargroup. Dot org is the website. Go
Speaker 1: check out their latest polls there. I'll be seeing it also,
Speaker 1: I'm sure on Twitter and other places. Robert, thanks for
Speaker 1: showing your expertise. Good to have you on.
Speaker 2: Absolutely I will go watch that video. You got me
Speaker 2: fired up, now go check it out. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Cheers