WEBVTT - Why Voters (and Which Voters) Returned Trump to Power with Brian Goldsmith 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:06.520 Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Couric and this is next question. 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:14.160 What was that song Maureen McGovern sang in the Poseidon Adventure? 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:15.840 Am I dating myself? 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:25.120 This got to be a morning of if we can 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:25.919 hold on? 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:33.120 Then This isn't exactly the morning after, but it is 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.879 the night after the twenty twenty four presidential election, and 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:43.479 I'm talking and debriefing with my good friend Brian Goldsmith. Brian, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:45.879 I am so happy to have you here. There's so 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.080 much I want to talk to you about what happened, 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.600 how the country feels, and where we're going with the 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:54.120 future Trump administration. 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.760 So good evening, good evening, not much to discuss. Kind 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:00.000 of a slow week, right. 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.840 Yeah, really, let's you know. I want to dis first 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:09.520 start by asking your general reaction to this massive Trump victory. 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.600 I think people thought it was going to be very close, 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.920 and maybe you're going to tell me it was close, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.480 But when you look at that electoral map, you're like, 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:21.360 holy shit, that's a lot of red. 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:27.640 What happened, Well, we may have overcomplicated this election. You 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.800 had an incumbent president with a forty percent approval rating. 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.800 You had sixty five seventy percent of the country saying 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.679 we're on the wrong track. Stuff costs about twenty percent 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.280 more than it did before COVID, and people were broadly 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.120 dissatisfied with the status quo and the party in power, 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.760 so they voted for the out party. Any political scientist 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.480 would tell you that that is the most normal thing 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.040 in the world. But of course Donald Trump is the 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:59.840 least normal candidate imaginable, and given all of the as 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.120 he would say, huge baggage that he's bringing into this 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.920 race and now into the White House. I think a 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.800 lot of Democrats, including me, thought this time would be different, 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:10.840 but it wasn't. 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.320 Do you think that a lot of pundits and political 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:21.200 experts such as yourself, Brian, thought that again his lunacy 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:28.360 would outweigh people's pain at the pump and the grocery store, etc. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.280 Well, we thought a couple of things. We thought the 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.120 load was just too much for voters to bear at 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:41.400 a certain point, the load of Trump right, all his problems. 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.799 You know. We saw a version of this in North Carolina, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:50.760 where people wanted to vote for change. The state voted 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.480 Republican for president, and yet they elected the Democrat Josh 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.480 Stein as governor by a pretty big margin, because. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:04.760 Well, fairness that his opponent was insane. If Mark Robinson, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.880 if hadn't been revealed that he was called himself a 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.800 black hitler and liked to watch transgender people have sex, 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.960 you know that was part of his choice in pornography. 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:18.040 Well, that's just an example of the load is too 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.120 much to bear. So the load was too much for 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.040 voters to bear with Mark Robinson. I think democrats thought, 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:27.120 just as Mark Robinson was ultimately rendered unelectable based on 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.520 his problems, Donald Trump would be rendered unelectable based on 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.440 his problems. And yeah, he didn't call himself a black Nazi, 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.040 but he did try to overturn a free and fair 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:41.240 election and instigate a violent insurrection. So you know, Potato Patado. 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.360 Well he's done a lot more than just that massive thing. 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:46.839 I mean, if you just look at the last ten 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.440 days of the campaign, and we've talked about this Brian, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.320 it seemed he was making no effort, as Maureen Dowd 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.840 wrote her Nerd column, to expand his base, to widen 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.480 the net, to get any voter he could, and he 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:06.080 just drilled down on this sort of obnoxious browie. I 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:11.240 can say anything and there are no repercussions unhinged kind 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:16.080 of weird behavior from Philating. I never knew that was 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.400 the verb. By the way, I learned something this week 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:24.200 filating a microphone and you know, making all these disgusting, 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:25.680 gross comments called, you know. 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:29.440 Russ should be shot, saying that his opponent should be arrested. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:34.279 Yeah, you know, Nancy Pelosi is a bitch, Kamala is trash, 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:36.560 you know, et cetera, et cetera. 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:41.720 Yeah, and more seriously, you know, promising all sorts of 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.760 illegal actions as president. And so you know, to step 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.520 back to answer your question. Yeah, we thought, despite broad 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.719 dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, that Harris had 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.120 run a pretty good campaign. She tried to position herself 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:01.039 as a change candidate. She closed some of the gap, 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.159 a lot of the gap on handling the economy, and that, 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:10.159 just as in twenty twenty two, Democrats would overperform because 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.560 of the Trump factor. And what I think we know 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:18.640 pretty definitively now is that Trump is a unique political 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:24.080 animal who is kind of untouchable to his supporters no 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.280 matter what he says or does, and brings out a 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.960 pretty big coalition to the polls no matter what. Now, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:32.960 his coalition this time is actually pretty different than his 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.280 coalition in twenty sixteen. And we'll get into all of that, 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.760 But to your original point, it was a broad based 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.320 victory in the Swing States. It was a series of 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:47.040 narrow victories, consistent victories across the Swing States. But he 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.400 wasn't winning the Swing States by five or ten points. 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.839 He was winning them by one or two points. He 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.480 had bigger gains in places where the campaign wasn't actually 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.840 being fought between Harris and Trump on the airwaves, but 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.520 the whole country did seem to move in his direction. 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.120 There is so much to unpack, Brian. Let's talk about 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:11.479 the constituencies that came out and supported Donald Trump. He 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:16.000 did surprisingly well or better. I guess it's all relative, 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:18.640 and you can put this into context for us with 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:23.000 a lot of groups. Let's first talk about black voters, 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.440 black women. I think ninety percent came out for Kamala Harris. 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:28.200 Is that correct? 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.640 Yeah, about ninety percent, maybe eighty nine or eighty eight, 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:33.080 but pretty close to that. 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.000 And that held steady correct for Joe Biden. 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:42.640 Well, we saw a pretty significant deterioration among black men. 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.080 And I should just say at the outset that this 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.360 data is a little bit early. It still needs to 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.000 cook for a couple of days, a couple of weeks. 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.600 These numbers will change a bit. But directionally, we're talking 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.000 about stuff based on the exit polling that is conducted, 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.920 you know, right after the election. So to answer your question, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.520 black men, Harris probably only won them by about fifty 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.480 six points. Clinton won them in twenty sixteen by sixty 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.960 nine points. Biden won them by about sixty points, So 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.080 you can see the line going down a little bit. 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:23.160 Black women, there was some deterioration too. Clinton won them 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:27.840 by ninety points, a nine zero point margin, went down 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.840 to eighty one points under Biden, went back up a 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.360 little bit for Harris, another black woman, that makes sense, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.480 to an eighty four point margin. But the significant deterioration 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.440 was among black men. And where I'm sure you're going next, 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:43.680 Latino men. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.160 Well, let's talk about Latino men and compare what they 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.280 did in twenty twenty versus twenty twenty four. 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:56.720 Well, this is huge, This is a historic realignment of 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:01.120 Latino voters. I think political scientus and historians are going 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.880 to be talking about this for a long time because 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.080 what's happening, and it's consistent with the sort of the 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:14.280 broader story of America. As immigrant groups settle here, have children, 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.600 have grandchildren, they assimilate, and the second generation, in the 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:23.600 third generation start to vote like white people. And so 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:29.239 you are seeing non college educated Latinos begin to vote 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.960 like non college educated white voters. And that is bad 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.679 news for Democrats because non college educated white people are 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:40.280 at the core of the Trump coalition. So let's go 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.520 back to twenty sixteen again. The first time Trump was 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.440 on the ballot, Hillary Clinton won Latino men by thirty 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.800 one points. Then Joe Biden won Latino men by a 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.600 little bit less, by twenty three points. What happened this year, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:58.560 Donald Trump won Latino men probably by about a dozen points. 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:04.480 That is like a thirty five point swing in four years. 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:06.719 And we can talk about some of the factors that 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.040 might have gone into that, but it's just stunning. And yes, 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:14.480 her advantage among Latina women narrowed as well, to about 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.800 half of Biden's margin from four years ago. 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.400 So as you say, that's a significant shift that's going 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.480 to be studied by historians, but it's not just a 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:30.880 generational explanation or assimilation. Are there other reasons for this 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:37.360 gravitational pull that Latinos had and Latina's had toward Donald Trump. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:43.880 We're moving toward educational stratification is the fancy term, but 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:48.080 sort of sorting in our politics where we have one 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:53.120 coalition for the college educated and another coalition for working 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.720 class voters who don't have a college degree. That is 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.240 the single best way to figure out today whether someone's 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.839 going to vote for a day Democrat or Republican. Do 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.280 they have a college or an advanced degree. The vast 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:09.679 majority of Latinos do not. They are increasingly starting to 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.800 vote based on cultural and economic factors more like other 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:18.880 voters without a college degree, and I think Trump really 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:23.120 hammered home a number of messages that resonated with that group. 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:27.080 They feel the pain of higher grocery costs, higher gas 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.480 prices like other working class people do, because they're living 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.559 paycheck to paycheck, and it's not just an inconvenience, it's 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.800 a disaster in their lives when those costs go up 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:40.920 so substantially. And on cultural issues, they've always been more 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:45.640 culturally conservative despite voting heavily Democratic, and so you know, 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:50.280 on issues like transgender care, which the Trump campaign just 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.640 hammered for the last two months, they sided with the Republicans. 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.439 Well, let's talk about college educated Latinos. When you look 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.480 at that group, I don't know if you have numbers 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:05.320 for them, but does it change dramatically and does that 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:10.640 college education mitigate some of the cultural issues that make 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.679 them tend to be more conservative. 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.760 So it's interesting what the exit poll provides is voters 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:21.440 of color, black and brown with a college degree versus without, 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:26.320 and that the difference is really striking. Harris won voters 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.880 of color who are college graduates by thirty three points. 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:30.680 Wow. 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.920 Voters of color with no degree, she won by a 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.800 narrower margin, by like twenty nine or thirty points, But 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.880 that's largely because you have, you know, black voters in there. 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.120 I think AAPI is included in there. I wish they 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.560 broke out just the Latinos because I think you would see, 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:52.240 you know, you would see a pretty dramatic difference. 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.240 Let's talk about white women. Hillary Clinton did not win 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.680 the election. One might argue, I'm wrong about this, Brian 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.320 in twenty sixteen because the majority of white women voted 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:06.200 for Donald Trump. 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.160 Well, you're right about that, but white women writ large 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.120 have always been a Republican constituency. They voted for Romney, 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:18.360 of Robama, for McCain of Robama, et cetera. People thought, 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:20.640 because Hillary was a white woman, she would narrow that 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:22.120 gap a little bit more. 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:23.560 But did she. 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:29.440 No, she didn't. She basically landed where, you know, where 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.000 Biden did, and that was a you know, that was 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:36.600 a significant problem. But again you'll see a huge education gap. 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.480 I mean, one of the few areas, maybe the only 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:44.400 area where Harris grew Democratic support compared to sixteen and 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.120 twenty is among white women with a college degree. White 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.160 women with a college degree were like Kamala Harris's base. 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.320 She won them by sixteen points compared to Biden winning 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.360 them by nine Hillary winning them by about that margin. 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:03.239 But among white women out a degree, zero improvement. Despite 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.440 Harris being you know, only the second woman to be 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.160 nominated for president, she basically performed the same among that 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.400 group as Biden did four years ago and as Hillary 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:15.720 did eight years ago. 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.480 When it comes to white women with a college degree, 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.560 if rove Way had not been overturned, do you think 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:27.800 she would have fared as well with that demographic. 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:33.320 No, I think Dobbs was a clearly a factor powering 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.880 overperformance among that group, which is strongly pro choice. I 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:42.480 think that improved her standing among men with a college 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:47.000 degree as well, but it just wasn't enough. You know, 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:52.000 you have states like Florida where there was an abortion 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.440 referendum on the ballot. Fifty seven percent of Floridians voted 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.560 the pro choice position and Harris got just shell act 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.760 in Florida, So a lot of voters, I think was 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.439 twenty eight percent of pro choice voters according to the 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.600 exit polling we have voted for Trump. So clearly that 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.160 was just not the most important issue to them. 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.520 Let's talk about young people because I read an article 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:21.280 before we hopped on about gen Z not really coming 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:26.119 out for Kamala Harris. Do you have any numbers about 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.200 young voters and what they ended up doing well. 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.000 There are two ways of looking at these groups. There's 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.440 the turnout that is how many people were actually showing 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:36.840 up to vote, and there's the share that is what 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.320 percentage of the voters who do turn out of somebody 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:44.200 getting And the turnout was clearly not as big as 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.680 what Democrats were hoping for and expecting. They thought that 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.880 Trump would drive historic turnout and that doesn't seem to 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:56.080 have happened. And then secondly, Harris performed substantially worse than 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.720 Joe Biden did and worse than Hillary Clinton did among 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.160 a teen to twenty nine year olds. She probably only 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.960 won them by about ten or eleven points. Biden won 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.800 them by twenty four points four years ago. Hillary won 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.440 them by almost twenty points eight years ago. She made 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.920 up for that to a degree by overperforming among seniors. 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.560 There was probably a tie among senior citizens, whereas Trump 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.320 won voters over sixty five in both sixteen and twenty, 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.280 but the change just wasn't nearly as dramatic. 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:31.920 This is what Peter Hanby wrote in Puck Kamala's Wasted Youth. Sure, 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.359 young white dudes broke for Trump, but Harris also underperformed 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:40.360 with almost every kind of young person, young white women, 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.880 young black voters, and young Latinos. 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:48.760 Why well, we're going to be sorting through that for 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.680 a while. I would say a couple of things. One, 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.920 if you're a young person, you're just starting out economically. 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.560 The majority of young people in the country still do 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.640 not have college degrees, and so so they feel stressed 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.760 and burdened by higher costs. They're saddled with more student debt. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:07.560 And even though Joe Biden did a lot of stuff 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.240 around student debt. I don't think they felt like their 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:14.680 economic pain was substantially alleviated. There may have been some 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.200 backlash to Israel Gaza, although we can talk about that 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:20.960 a little more. I'm still skeptical that that was a 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.600 high priority for a lot of voters. And I also 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:29.520 think there wasn't like a clear agenda that Harris was 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.280 presenting to them about how young people's lives were going 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.560 to get better and how her administration would represent a 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.320 change versus the last four years the Biden administration. 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.520 We have a lot to unpack and just that answer, 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.920 but just staying with young people, Biden won eighteen to 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.440 twenty nine year olds by a massive twenty five point margin. 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:54.800 She won them only by thirteen points, so that's a 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:56.080 significant drop. 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:57.760 That margin was cut in half. 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.560 If you want to get smarter every morning with a 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.879 breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.280 wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:26.840 wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Let's 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.439 talk about the Middle East, And as you said, I 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:33.040 think the economy in most polls was the top priority 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:38.359 for young people, but Obviously, we had a lot of 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.919 controversy following the attack on Israel of October seventh, with 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:48.600 protests on college campuses as the war continued, people protesting 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:54.720 the number of civilian casualties and deaths in Gaza. How 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:59.040 did Kamala Harris do navigating that? Because I feel like 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:03.760 she tried to express her support of Israel but also 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:09.800 her sympathy to the people in Gaza, and it turns out, 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.200 it seems to me, Brian, she pissed both groups off. 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:19.119 There was that abandon Harris campaign in Michigan. I'm not 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.040 sure how significant that ended up being in the vote. 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.719 I want to talk to you about that and then, 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.359 and maybe it's because I live in New York and 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.639 follow a lot of Jewish people on Instagram, and you 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.879 know many Jewish people, and if you're Jewish, so you 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:38.000 probably talked to people who felt this way supported Trump 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.359 because they felt he would be better for Israel, and 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.760 they became single issue voters on that. So how much 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.320 did this trying to please everyone in a way hurt 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:49.840 Kamala Harris in your view? 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.639 Well, first of all, I think she was probably expressing 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.120 what her real position is. You know, for twenty years. 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:02.639 Kamala Harris has been a pretty stalwart ally of Israel 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.520 and Jewish Americans. Her relationship with Jews in the Bay 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:10.040 Area goes back decades. She actually took her Jewish husband 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:14.000 on his first trip to Israel after she became a senator. 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.360 So I think that's real. And I also think that 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:21.520 the Biden Harris administration had real issues with the way 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.560 that Biebe was prosecuting the war and not developing a 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:30.200 clear goal and an endgame. That said, I don't think 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.840 it was a top concern for a large number of voters. 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.960 The polling was pretty consistent about this. There were a 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.439 lot of people who were very loud on social media 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:43.240 on one side or the other. I think in New York, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.720 which is home to the largest Jewish community in the 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:51.720 United States, there was clearly deterioration of Harris's position versus 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.520 Biden four years ago or Clinton eight years ago. 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:56.679 In New York City. 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.440 In New York State, Yeah, New York City and Long 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:01.560 Island and and throughout the state. New York City in 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.600 the suburbs primarily, which is where Jews tend to live, 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.680 But we don't see evidence of that yet. Nationally, in Pennsylvania, 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.040 for example, which has a very substantial Jewish community. She 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.679 seems to have performed about as well as Joe Biden 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.359 did four years ago. So maybe in the New York 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:22.399 media market, the New York echo chamber, this was a 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:27.600 bigger deal than it was in California or Pennsylvania, for example. 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.119 And it's interesting. In the exit polling, they asked the question, 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:35.040 is US support for Israel too strong, not strong enough, 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.240 or about right? Well, sixty one percent of voters thought 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:43.280 it was not strong enough or about right. Only thirty 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.679 one percent, less than a third thought American support for 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.240 Israel was too strong, and Harris actually won that group 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.000 by like two to one, By more than two to one. 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:58.720 We did see clearly in Michigan in Dearborn, some pockets 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.480 in certain precincts of Jill Stein's support and a collapse 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.960 in Harris's support. I don't think it was enough to 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.560 have made the difference statewide. I also think it's notable 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.600 that Alyssa Slotkin, who is a pro Israel Jewish woman, 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.920 was elected to the Senate from Michigan on the same 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.600 day and the same election when Kamala Harris lost. So 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:22.880 if that was the driving issue they wouldn't have voted 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.400 for Slotkin either, So I'm a little skeptical. 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.040 Well, did they vote for Slotkin and Dearborn? No? 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:31.800 But it was clearly not enough to deprive her of 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:36.600 a victory. There were enough Trump Slotkin voters that she 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:38.359 was able to overcome that. 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:41.560 I want to ask you about the polls. You and 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.520 I seemed to talk about the polls every election. Were 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:45.879 they accurate? This time? 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.760 They look pretty accurate, although misleading, which sounds like a 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.560 contradictory answer. And let me unpack it slightly. What the 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.960 polls essentially showed in the seven battlegrounds. Again, I don't 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.040 really care about national polling because this election is fought 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:06.000 in seven states, and it's about the electoral college, it's 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.600 not about the national popular vote. So the best polling 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.679 was of these seven states, and essentially what it showed 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:15.800 was a tie in almost all of these states. And 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:18.719 the thing that people often forget about polling is the 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:23.360 margin of error applies to each number, not to the 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.000 margin between the two numbers. So if you see a 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.600 poll that's one candidate at fifty another candidate at forty eight, 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.919 with a margin of plus or minus three, you know 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:36.439 that means the spread could be fifty three forty five 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.840 and it would still be statistically the same poll that 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:46.240 you're seeing. And so people overread polling, people ascribed polling 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:51.720 powers and precision that it doesn't have. And it is 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:57.600 also the historical pattern that in the end, presidential elections 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.560 tend to move one way or the other. That sounds 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:03.280 like a very obvious statement, but that is to say, 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.119 it is very rare that you would have of the 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:10.240 seven battlegrounds three going one way, four going the other. 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:14.439 It's usually like six to one, seven to zero, because 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:19.240 the voters are similar and the undecided usually break kind 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:21.560 of in one direction. And that's what we saw here. 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:27.880 We saw a pattern of consistent but narrow Trump wins 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.159 in the battlegrounds. And so, you know, people don't like 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:34.040 in Wisconsin right now it's a you know, it's a 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:39.639 less than one point Trump win. In Michigan right now, 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:44.919 it's a one point and change Trump win. In Pennsylvania 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:47.840 it's a one point you know. So these are tiny margins. 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:51.199 So you can't say the polling was wrong because this 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:53.959 was well within the range of what the polling was showing. 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:58.640 There has been a ton of Monday morning, Wednesday morning quarterbacking, 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:03.920 and everyone is now setting their sights on the Democratic 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:08.000 Party and on the way Kamala Harris ran the campaign. 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:11.560 Let's talk about the campaign first, and then we'll talk 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:16.399 about the larger Democratic Party. If you were giving Kamala 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:19.480 Harris feedback or the campaign feedback, what would you tell 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:21.800 them they could have done better or differently? 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:26.560 Well, you know, we're all geniuses in retrospect. And there's 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:30.240 a famous JFK story. Right after he won super narrowly 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:35.000 in nineteen sixty, Time magazine called him and his advisors 0:24:35.480 --> 0:24:39.200 chorus skatingly brilliant. I've never heard the word chorus skatingly, Katie. 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:42.320 You're kind of a vocab nerd, so you probably have. 0:24:42.560 --> 0:24:43.560 I've never heard of it. 0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:46.560 Yeah, I should look it up. I did years ago. 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:50.959 And I think it just means like resoundingly impressively something 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:54.920 like that. And I'm allowed to swear on this podcast, 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:55.280 aren't I? 0:24:55.400 --> 0:24:56.000 Yes, you are? 0:24:56.080 --> 0:25:00.439 Brian Okay. Well, apparently what JFK said upon reading the 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:03.680 article is he looked up, he smirked, and he said, 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:06.040 a couple of votes in the other direction in Texas 0:25:06.080 --> 0:25:09.600 and Florida, and we'd have all been coruscatingly fucking stupid. 0:25:10.280 --> 0:25:14.639 And you know, I think there's something to that. You're 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:17.080