Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Nate Silver. Marie is out today, but
Speaker 1: my friend and fellow politics slash poker slash degenerate enthusiast
Speaker 1: Matt Glasman is here to talk about Joe Biden dropping
Speaker 1: out and Kamala Harris stepping in. How are you, Matt, come,
Speaker 1: I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be here. This is sort of
Speaker 2: the Wheelhouse podcast for me, and hopefully I'll be able
Speaker 2: to contribute in a meaningful way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Matt is a friend of the pod and a
Speaker 1: senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.
Speaker 1: He's been on and around the Hill for a decade,
Speaker 1: getting up close and personal with the inner workings of
Speaker 1: the legislature for the Congressional Research Service and the House
Speaker 1: Appropriations Committee. Basically, he knows his stuff and I'm excited
Speaker 1: to have him on. So anything I missed any other
Speaker 1: key context?
Speaker 2: No, I love talking politics, I love talking poker, and
Speaker 2: here we are at the perfect intersection of the two.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: So we're going to kind of go when chronological order here. First,
Speaker 1: talk about what it took for Joe Biden to make
Speaker 1: his decision, then why the party consolidated around Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: so quickly, and then look forward to what Kamala Harris's chances,
Speaker 1: advantages and my abilities might be in the general election
Speaker 1: against Donald Trump. Matt, Where were you when you when
Speaker 1: you first heard the news on Sunday?
Speaker 2: I was stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike
Speaker 2: down between Exit two and three, heading south on ninety five.
Speaker 2: It was one of those moments where like I knew
Speaker 2: I was gonna remember where I was forever in this spot,
Speaker 2: and here I am stuck in traffic in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Just came across like the radio and now I'm just
Speaker 2: like stewing in the traffic with time to think. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Where were you? Yeah, we were in upstate New York
Speaker 1: and Hudson, New York, kind of gradually driving back to
Speaker 1: the city. I thought we had a nice relaxing day,
Speaker 1: stop for some lunch and go to all the you
Speaker 1: know whatever fruit freu antique stuff up there and things
Speaker 1: like that. I meanwhile, I was trying to run the
Speaker 1: model run for the day. We update the model almost
Speaker 1: every day, even weekends, And I text Eli my fabulous
Speaker 1: assistant elections analyst the newsletter and I'm like, okay, here,
Speaker 1: the numbers are ready for you. He produces the graphics
Speaker 1: and he texts back just Joe Biden's tweet. It was
Speaker 1: kind of hard to decipher at first. It was a
Speaker 1: very long tweet, right, It didn't say I'm dropping out.
Speaker 1: You have to like read a like the fourth paragraph.
Speaker 1: And I went to poly market and it's like Biden's
Speaker 1: dropping out ninety eight percent or whatever. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's never like it's never like, you know, usually
Speaker 1: made a poker tournament with something like this happens. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of stuck up there with not very
Speaker 1: much Wi Fi signal.
Speaker 2: I was in a World Series event during the debate,
Speaker 2: and so I was sitting in one of those rooms
Speaker 2: at the Horseshoe and no one is watching the bait.
Speaker 2: It's not in the TV anywhere, and all I'm getting
Speaker 2: these furious texts like, oh my god, this can't be happening.
Speaker 2: What is happening? What is happening? And yeah, there's sort
Speaker 2: of like a helpless feeling to it. Right, We're just
Speaker 2: stuck in traffick in New Jersey and all I want
Speaker 2: to do is like ask people things and tell people things,
Speaker 2: and know here I am staring at the Delam World
Speaker 2: Bridge for half an hour.
Speaker 1: It's it's a bunch of moments, right. It's the assassination
Speaker 1: attempt against Trump, which the winds playing a different direction
Speaker 1: and we're in a very different world. Right. It's the
Speaker 1: it's the debate. It's the fact that it was only
Speaker 1: a month ago or something that Trump was convicted I
Speaker 1: guess more than a month ago, now, like six weeks ago,
Speaker 1: seven weeks ago he was convicted on various felony counts.
Speaker 1: And the fact that, like there's been this consolidation around
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, we may soon have the first, uh first
Speaker 1: woman of color, everybody nominated by a major presidential ticket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they packed a lot. They packed a lot in here,
Speaker 1: I think. But but putting on more of a political
Speaker 1: science government institutional observer hat, if you were making bets
Speaker 1: on prediction markets and we would have bought dropout stock, Matt,
Speaker 1: can you tell me more of the thinking behind that
Speaker 1: and kind of what this says about political parties, or
Speaker 1: at least the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean, I think the main thing to take
Speaker 2: away from this is that you know, parties matter, and
Speaker 2: that individual candidates for office, be it the president United States,
Speaker 2: a member of Congress, someone running for the PTA, aren't
Speaker 2: just sort of these individuals up there with authority. They
Speaker 2: have these coalitions underneath them. And you exist because you
Speaker 2: have a coalition of voters and interest groups and money
Speaker 2: people and other politicians who support you. And if they
Speaker 2: withdraw their support, right, it really collapses on you, almost
Speaker 2: like a sand castle underneath you. And this was sort
Speaker 2: of an open question because presidents have become so powerful
Speaker 2: and when we think about them in terms of parties,
Speaker 2: often we think the president controls the party.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: In the nineteenth century, we knew that wasn't true. The
Speaker 2: party was dominant. In the twentieth century it was sort
Speaker 2: of a battle between parties and presidents. But now we think, well,
Speaker 2: the president controls the party and he reshapes the party, right.
Speaker 2: You see this with Clinton or with Trump, like the
Speaker 2: party just reshapes under them. They pick the DNC heads,
Speaker 2: they pick all the sort of the people. But when
Speaker 2: push comes to shove, it turns out parties are still
Speaker 2: important actor And you could see as soon as elite
Speaker 2: actors and the populace start to withdraw their support of Biden.
Speaker 2: It just collapsed on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Joe Biden in particular is a politician who
Speaker 1: was dependent on the support of his party. Right, I mean,
Speaker 1: look at think about twenty twenty was not quite like
Speaker 1: Biden dropping out moment. But you kind of have like
Speaker 1: the super friends get together and they flew, am I
Speaker 1: getting this remember in this right, Like Pete Buha, Jude
Speaker 1: and Amy Klomachar like all flew to like the same
Speaker 1: rally to like endorse Biden after Jim Clyburn had endorsed
Speaker 1: him in South Carolina. So this is two elections in
Speaker 1: a row where the Democratic Party made a really strong move.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean because if you read the reporting,
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi say we can do this the easy way
Speaker 1: or do it the hard way. And apparently people in
Speaker 1: his inner circle were at least willing to level with
Speaker 1: him about about the polling being very bad about I mean,
Speaker 1: apparently they hadn't actually done very much pulling in the
Speaker 1: past couple of months. It's the fact that Biden hadn't
Speaker 1: been polling the White House, had not been pulling the
Speaker 1: swing States was probably a bad sign. But something got
Speaker 1: through to him. But play it out what had happened.
Speaker 1: What would the next week, Matt, do you think have
Speaker 1: looked like if Biden remained obstinate and said I don't
Speaker 1: want to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think they're playing this game of
Speaker 2: chicken where it's quite obvious that the party actors want
Speaker 2: him go on, and it's quite obvious that he is
Speaker 2: resistant to that idea, and lurking in the background is
Speaker 2: the idea of like, are you willing to sort of
Speaker 2: wreck the party to get your way here? And that
Speaker 2: made it precare us for everyone, because I think no
Speaker 2: one sort of thought of this as a situation where
Speaker 2: you could credibly commit to sort of the game of
Speaker 2: chicken like we would in game theory, right, Whether the
Speaker 2: key to the game of chicken, if two cars are
Speaker 2: sort of heading at each other, is to just credibly
Speaker 2: commit that you're not going to swerve, throw the steering
Speaker 2: ro out the window, improve you can't swerve to make
Speaker 2: their payoffs have to be better to swerve than to
Speaker 2: keep going, and hope you swerve. You can't anymore. Now,
Speaker 2: I think what was going to happen in the next
Speaker 2: week was they're going to ramp up the game of
Speaker 2: chicken to the point where maybe it was going to
Speaker 2: hurt his chances of winning the presidency if he did
Speaker 2: hold on. Essentially, they were going to sort of credibly
Speaker 2: commit it to say, look, you can be the nominee
Speaker 2: if you don't want to deal with us, but you're
Speaker 2: going to lose the election. And that's sort of like
Speaker 2: the extreme version, but it was headed that direction. Everyone
Speaker 2: was circling around him, and I think the writing's on
Speaker 2: the wall and sort of, you know, Biden then takes
Speaker 2: the sort of obvious way out right, which is do
Speaker 2: the quote unquote right thing for the party, which is
Speaker 2: what it's ended up going to be presented as, like
Speaker 2: the party is not stupid, Like the message's going to
Speaker 2: be here, a huge celebration of Biden passing the torch, doesn't.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what this convention is going to look like, right,
Speaker 2: It's gonna's a huge celebration of Biden's career and his
Speaker 2: presidency and always accomplished. And then they're going to hand
Speaker 2: it over to Harris and it's all going to look like, well,
Speaker 2: Biden did this noble thing, which I don't buy for
Speaker 2: a second. They shoved him out, and this is why
Speaker 2: parties pass those things up. I mean, one thing I
Speaker 2: wanted to go back to is this this idea of
Speaker 2: how parties think people started to get worried about their
Speaker 2: own re elections, and and that's an important piece of parties.
Speaker 2: Their group decisions and the people in the parties have
Speaker 2: all different goals and they don't even have to have
Speaker 2: the same goal to arrive at the same conclusion. Like
Speaker 2: a lot of House members and swing districts might have
Speaker 2: start worried about their own reelection. As you point out,
Speaker 2: party leaders or members of the House might start worried
Speaker 2: about control of the chamber right and might be like, well,
Speaker 2: we can lose with anyone, but let's not go down
Speaker 2: and flames here. Let's hold onto the House. Other people
Speaker 2: might have been concerned about policies. They might decided, well,
Speaker 2: Biden's old and honestly Harris will be better on this issue,
Speaker 2: or that it should have been an agenda that's more
Speaker 2: comftabed with me. And you know, others might think Harris
Speaker 2: just actually has a better chance, and they're worried about
Speaker 2: controlling the presidency, and all these things come together and
Speaker 2: ultimately like it congeals into a decision, but it's not
Speaker 2: like everyone made this decision for the same reason within
Speaker 2: the party. The party output spits out in some way
Speaker 2: that you hope is rational, But it's a collection of
Speaker 2: individuals who all thinking differently, And this isn't like a
Speaker 2: surprise anyone, Like if you've ever been at a PTA
Speaker 2: meeting or an HOA meeting, or just decide where to
Speaker 2: go to dinner with your family, Like, group decisions are
Speaker 2: not sort of like necessarily meta rational, but each individual
Speaker 2: might be acting rational to create sort of the endpoint.
Speaker 1: I mean, apparently, according to reporting like this was a
Speaker 1: relatively recent decision. By the way, we have not actually
Speaker 1: heard from Maybe by the time you listen to this
Speaker 1: you will have right. We haven't heard from Biden directly
Speaker 1: beyond these initial statements on Twitter and other social media networks,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit strange, I suppose. But as
Speaker 1: someone who has spent more time in and around the
Speaker 1: halls of power and more time in DC and mesanity
Speaker 1: than I have, what do you think the inner circle
Speaker 1: of the White House was thinking? I mean, there's been
Speaker 1: reporting that the Biden campaign was in some form of
Speaker 1: denial about what the polls said. Do you think they
Speaker 1: knew deep down that this wasn't working. Do you think
Speaker 1: they were drinking the kool aid? Do you think they
Speaker 1: felt like they had like a professional obligation to play
Speaker 1: out the string for Biden or what I mean?
Speaker 2: I think that it's very easy when you're a campaign
Speaker 2: staffer or a staffer to an elected official, to talk
Speaker 2: yourself into the reasons why they're indispensable. One thing is
Speaker 2: that the incentives of the staffers are a little different
Speaker 2: and the incentives of the principles in these spots. If
Speaker 2: you know, if a staffer gives up on Biden and
Speaker 2: says it's time to throw in the towel, they're probably
Speaker 2: out of a job on the campaign, especially at the
Speaker 2: top senior levels. They're probably out of our future job
Speaker 2: in a different administration in the White House. And it
Speaker 2: doesn't surprise me at all that the people close to
Speaker 2: the Biden would be the people most resistant to this.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's almost just human nature, right. This is
Speaker 2: their guy, and of course he's going to beat Trump.
Speaker 2: He's beat Trump in the past, and like this isn't
Speaker 2: just talking points, Like you can actually believe this. And
Speaker 2: I don't think it like was lost on them that
Speaker 2: they probably don't think much or as much as other
Speaker 2: people do, of sort of like Harris's chances.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're gonna talk about Harris in a second,
Speaker 1: including the complex dynamics of like why the White House
Speaker 1: seemed to lack confidence in her. Maybe let me ask
Speaker 1: one more question, though, Is this evidence that Democrats are
Speaker 1: more rational than Republicans or is that not a fair conclusion.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's. I mean, it's certainly evident.
Speaker 2: It's one piece of evidence that way. And I do
Speaker 2: think sort of Trump and sort of populous like Trump
Speaker 2: tend to produce these cults of personality. I'm proud of
Speaker 2: them party for doing this right. This is not an
Speaker 2: easy thing for a party to do. And if you've
Speaker 2: ever been in a room trying to make a decision
Speaker 2: with ten people, you can imagine how hard it is
Speaker 2: to turn around in that decision. And so I think
Speaker 2: they did really well here for themselves. I don't think
Speaker 2: it says anything about them relatively Republicans, except in this
Speaker 2: current instance. It's hard to picture Trump being pushed out
Speaker 2: this way, but again that's Trump's a different type of leader,
Speaker 2: a different person. If the Republicans were faced with, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of our mirror image of Biden. I can imagine
Speaker 2: them doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break. When we return,
Speaker 1: Matt and I will talk about Kamala Harris. So, Matt,
Speaker 1: if you go to Polymarket or other betting markets, Kamala
Speaker 1: Harra says about an eighty three percent chance when I
Speaker 1: looked fifteen minutes ago to be the Democratic nominee for president.
Speaker 1: Is eighty three percent too high or too low?
Speaker 2: I'm buying at eighty three. I think, I really think
Speaker 2: she's at the point where what you're talking about is
Speaker 2: sort of the three to five to seven percent whatever
Speaker 2: it is of sort of like black swan event keeping
Speaker 2: her from the nomination. That could be some undisclosed piece
Speaker 2: of information, or she could be sick, knock on wood
Speaker 2: or whatever and something go wrong. But I think she's
Speaker 2: virtually a lock at this point. The way the Democrats
Speaker 2: have consolidated around her is remarkable. Everybody just flew out
Speaker 2: from across the spectrum. You had the CBC, you had
Speaker 2: various House and Senate members, you had her opponents, and
Speaker 2: basically what they did was they said, you know, this
Speaker 2: is a done deal. What those endorsements mean. Starting with
Speaker 2: the President and then it keeps any sort of potential challenge.
Speaker 2: And now I see every possible challenger to her has
Speaker 2: basically endorsed her, So the field has been cleared.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think this just like guaranteed to happen
Speaker 1: and we're just discovering that now, or do you think
Speaker 1: it's a situation where like it's kind of an unstable equilibrium.
Speaker 1: Once the herd starts to move one way, then the
Speaker 1: outcome becomes inevitable. Therefore you want to jump on the bandwagon.
Speaker 1: How many metaphors am I mixing here? But like, do
Speaker 1: you think there's a world in which this doesn't happen
Speaker 1: that's adjacent to the actual world that we live in?
Speaker 2: Only if sort of she thought that her stepping aside
Speaker 2: would help the party too in some sort of altruistic way.
Speaker 2: I think the issue here is that the big danger
Speaker 2: for the party in Biden stepping aside was that they
Speaker 2: weren't gonna be able to put the coalition back together,
Speaker 2: like the big Coalition was going to crack, and that
Speaker 2: it was never gonna be able to clean up by anyone,
Speaker 2: And you're gonna have people who were bitter and vindictive
Speaker 2: about what happened and looks like they've minimized that. But
Speaker 2: passing over her would have been the most obvious way
Speaker 2: to create that sity situation where you're not gonna be
Speaker 2: able to put the coalition back together for any number
Speaker 2: of reasons. Her and her people directly sort of the
Speaker 2: people who support her interests, sort of a script of
Speaker 2: representation groups if you anger sort of African Americans and
Speaker 2: you skip over her for you know, Whitmer or whatever.
Speaker 2: And so I think this was the most obvious way
Speaker 2: to go it least party tension and best chance to
Speaker 2: make sure the coalition comes back together, which there is
Speaker 2: no guarantee anyway, Like there's still that one group that
Speaker 2: you worry about, which is sort of like the hardcore
Speaker 2: inner circle. Biden Knight's not playing nice and I don't
Speaker 2: think that's gonna happen, but they're still sort of out there.
Speaker 2: The advance for Harris in terms of information reveal over
Speaker 2: any other candidate is also there. She's been vetted in
Speaker 2: a national election before, which is not nothing. If we
Speaker 2: had gone with Whitmer, like great year governor of state,
Speaker 2: We've seen plenty of governors of states have stuff revealed
Speaker 2: about them in national elections and national primaries that cause
Speaker 2: problems from a vetting point of view, and so she's
Speaker 2: a safe candidate in that sense. But the most important
Speaker 2: thing is that she's the vice president of United States.
Speaker 2: She's the obvious there parent. Biden picked her to be
Speaker 2: second in command, and now you're stepping aside. You better
Speaker 2: come up with a damn good reason to pass over
Speaker 2: her if you want to keep party harmony.
Speaker 1: And probably the way it could have been done would
Speaker 1: be to have this kind of mini primary where you
Speaker 1: have somehow public forums voter participation like that might have
Speaker 1: been tenable, But it also seemed like not very many
Speaker 1: of the people were that interested in the job because
Speaker 1: Joe Biden has been wobbling for how w was debate
Speaker 1: almost a month ago now right. If you were Gavin
Speaker 1: Newsome and you were really interested in the nomination, I mean,
Speaker 1: you would probably have floated something sooner or like tried
Speaker 1: to start some momentum running and there was like no
Speaker 1: other obvious alternative. But like, but look, let me ask
Speaker 1: you this, based on reporting, the White House itself is
Speaker 1: not that confident about Kamala Harris's chances against Trump. She
Speaker 1: is down in the polls currently against Trump. That might change.
Speaker 1: Poles sometimes change when you go from being a hypothetical
Speaker 1: to an actual candidate. But but for the time being,
Speaker 1: her polling looks maybe a point better than Biden's. But
Speaker 1: Biden's polling was pretty bad, so that's not saying very much.
Speaker 1: Why would a can who we've just been were a
Speaker 1: party rather who we've just been praising for being hyper rational?
Speaker 1: Why would they worry about not wanting to offend X
Speaker 1: or Y in group or outgroup if they can increase
Speaker 1: their chances of beating Trump from say thirty five percent,
Speaker 1: which is roughly what prediction markets assumed about hair As
Speaker 1: to like fifty or fifty five percent with the hypothetical
Speaker 1: perfect you know, Gretchen Whitmer, I don't know who else
Speaker 1: ticket I've.
Speaker 2: Put Whitmer and Shapiro on a ticket and just be like, well,
Speaker 2: now we're coming after Michigan and Pennsylvania, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: I think that the parties are probably a little too
Speaker 2: risk averse in situations like this, but the fear of
Speaker 2: party crack up always looms over any sort of coalition,
Speaker 2: and I think they thought that, you know, if we're
Speaker 2: pushing Biden out because he's too old and he can't
Speaker 2: do this anymore. Then we're not saying he ran a
Speaker 2: bad administration. We're not saying there's any wrong with the administration.
Speaker 2: There's not anything wrong with his record. And so what
Speaker 2: is your reasoning for going around Harris except that you're saying, oh, well,
Speaker 2: other people pull better. Maybe maybe they do. But again,
Speaker 2: I think the party crack up aspect of this looms
Speaker 2: so large, and I think the only way to get
Speaker 2: around Harris was to have that open competition. And I
Speaker 2: don't think the party wanted an open competition. I don't
Speaker 2: think parties ever want that situation, right, because that is
Speaker 2: what creates sort of bad blood. And what happens if
Speaker 2: you end up in a situation where an open competition
Speaker 2: and you have a narrow victory, right, where does that
Speaker 2: leave everybody? What does that clean up? You're just asking
Speaker 2: people to back the party, and I think this is
Speaker 2: sort of the safest route.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Again, there's a variance issue here. They may be thinking
Speaker 2: about variance incorrectly. They may need variants right now. I
Speaker 2: think that's the point you've made in the past. But
Speaker 2: there's a huge variance issue. And if you're thinking about
Speaker 2: protecting the House representatives, for instance, and your best chance
Speaker 2: to take control of the House all of a sudden
Speaker 2: losing with Harris keeping the coalition intact, It's not the
Speaker 2: worst thing in the world. We know where we'll get.
Speaker 2: It won't be the disaster of old man Biden, like
Speaker 2: falling asleep on the campaign trail sometime in the next
Speaker 2: two months. I mean, that was the real disaster that
Speaker 2: was looming, is that Biden would completely self destruct in
Speaker 2: October and the entire Democratic Party were from crashing down
Speaker 2: with him. That won't happen with Harris to lose. Maybe
Speaker 2: she's a bad candidate, right or whatever reason, Like she
Speaker 2: doesn't do well. Trump wins, but it doesn't feel like
Speaker 2: she's gonna go out there and just bring the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party down with her, and the crackup could cause that.
Speaker 2: Now again, you may be looking for variants. You may
Speaker 2: be looking for Josh Shapiro to shake things up, or
Speaker 2: Gretchen Whitmer. I think Whitmer is probably the only other
Speaker 2: realistic option. The Democrat Party is a collection of interest in.
Speaker 2: One of those interests is that we have wide representation
Speaker 2: of both mind maority groups and women, and to pass
Speaker 2: over to Harris and then pass over Whitmer and be like, oh, look, dude,
Speaker 2: we got this white guy in Pennsylvania. It's gonna be perfect.
Speaker 2: I think that would have caused enough tension in the part.
Speaker 1: Right. I think came the closest anyone actually saying he
Speaker 1: wanted it. It's like the Biden campaign was, like, among
Speaker 1: other things, for Democrats, extremely demoralizing, where every day you
Speaker 1: wake up and there are these polls showing Biden losing
Speaker 1: and he's either not giving public remarks or when he
Speaker 1: does it's embarrassing half the time. It was very disheartening
Speaker 1: for Democrats. And I think just having like the semblance
Speaker 1: of a normal campaign I think is a potent lever
Speaker 1: for Harris and for Democrats here. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think they'll come to regret not having a mini primary
Speaker 1: or is it like it just wasn't going to fly,
Speaker 1: and once it's not going to fly, then it's better
Speaker 1: to be unified than not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think largely allowed to Look, you know,
Speaker 2: when Harris loses, we're gonna hear every sort of idiotic
Speaker 2: take we can about this decision because the results oriented
Speaker 2: thinking it's going to come back of this, So like oh,
Speaker 2: Biden could have won, right, Whitmer could have won. All
Speaker 2: of the things are going to come out, and of
Speaker 2: course that's you know, as a poker a bridge player
Speaker 2: would say that that's ridiculous. Right. You make the decision
Speaker 2: with the best information you have and sort of whatever
Speaker 2: happens with the rolls of the dice you can't control.
Speaker 2: I do think that you know one thing going with
Speaker 2: Harris now, does is it? Lets sort of the sort
Speaker 2: of the thing move forward quicker. Right. We saw this
Speaker 2: massive fundraising haul for the Democrats yesterday, right, and this
Speaker 2: wave of sort of popular enthusiasm and who knows how
Speaker 2: on in this last But if you say, oh, we're
Speaker 2: going to set up a process now for the next
Speaker 2: two weeks, people are going to bicker with each other
Speaker 2: about who should be their nominee, and then at the
Speaker 2: convention in August, we'll deal with this. You're waiting a
Speaker 2: long time to sort of get to that point, and
Speaker 2: I think that the time running short aspect of this
Speaker 2: shouldn't be underestimated. You know, either we have Harris coming
Speaker 2: in now and she's gonna be the candidate today. There's
Speaker 2: logistical issues transferring her the money from from the Biden
Speaker 2: campaign was easier than anyone else. And so there's all
Speaker 2: these things sort of build up for different people, I think,
Speaker 2: and you get to the point where it's like, well,
Speaker 2: does Whitmer even want to run for president?
Speaker 1: Right now?
Speaker 2: Right? That's the other question hiding behind all this is,
Speaker 2: like all these candidates they backed the way real quick.
Speaker 2: When they decide to coordinate on Harris, a lot of
Speaker 2: them might not have been interested anyway. So we're gonna
Speaker 2: hold them any primary who's going to show up? Right,
Speaker 2: Harris will show up, probably maybe a couple of themill
Speaker 2: show up, but as soon as a couple of other
Speaker 2: show up, the rest are going to drop out. Like,
Speaker 2: it's not clearly what a many primary would've even look
Speaker 2: like in terms of which candidates want to get in
Speaker 2: one hundred days before the election to try and get
Speaker 2: the Democratic nomination in a precarious situation where they're going
Speaker 2: to be an underdog.
Speaker 1: How seamless is a transition between Biden and Harris? Are
Speaker 1: like all the Biden people like running her campaign? Now
Speaker 1: will she want to replace them with her own staff?
Speaker 1: There is lots of talk about, by the way, internal
Speaker 1: tension between the Biden staff and the Harris staff. How
Speaker 1: does that actually like physically work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is a huge issue because you know,
Speaker 2: the campaign staff are notoriously sort of territorial, and even
Speaker 2: on campaigns that are sort of normal and get started
Speaker 2: in the primaries and roll forward, you have internal tensions
Speaker 2: between different staffers on the campaign, you know, and you know,
Speaker 2: whether the campaign manager gets along with the candidate's spouse
Speaker 2: is always sort of like a classic crack up in Congress, right,
Speaker 2: And all of these things now have to sort of
Speaker 2: be dealt with in faster than normal real time for politics.
Speaker 2: I think I saw that the Biden staffers from the
Speaker 2: campaign said they were all going to you know, flip
Speaker 2: over and help Harris for now, right, And that seems
Speaker 2: sort of normal. But I don't think you know that
Speaker 2: the Biden campaign is the set of staffers, the set
Speaker 2: of strategies, the set of money people, and the set
Speaker 2: of get out the vote operations that Harris would have
Speaker 2: set up had she just won the primary right now,
Speaker 2: and sort of an opens thing Biden said, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to run Harrison's the primary. She would have set
Speaker 2: up an entirely different apparatus, and so the friction there
Speaker 2: is real and I think there's no doubt she's going
Speaker 2: to change some of the people, particularly the top, the
Speaker 2: senior levels or the places where you know, probably the
Speaker 2: biggest change will happen. But just sort of she is
Speaker 2: going to be forced to run, at least for a while,
Speaker 2: on an apparatus that she didn't build and she didn't direct,
Speaker 2: and her people and people she's comforted with and her
Speaker 2: allies didn't build and direct. And that's a challenge. It's
Speaker 2: not insurmountable, but it certainly is different than what she
Speaker 2: would have done otherwise. And I suspect we're going to
Speaker 2: have a lot of changes in the campaigns and even
Speaker 2: right down to sort of you know, the surrogates that
Speaker 2: they use for on television, on cable news and here,
Speaker 2: and there are going to be a different set of
Speaker 2: people surrounding you know, Kamala Harris the coalition than Joe
Speaker 2: Biden the coalition. Right, they're linked together, but they are
Speaker 2: different coalitions.
Speaker 1: We're going to take one more break here and then
Speaker 1: be back to talk a little bit about Kamala Harris's
Speaker 1: odds and what we have to look forward to between
Speaker 1: now and November. So, if you go to prediction markets,
Speaker 1: I know, we're spending a lot of time on them,
Speaker 1: but it's a time when there's a lot of uncertainty,
Speaker 1: there's not really enough polling. Yet they basically imply that
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris has about a thirty five percent chance of
Speaker 1: beating Trump conditional upon winning the nomination, which we both
Speaker 1: expect her to do. Interestingly, in my model, thirty five
Speaker 1: percent was a chance that Biden had before the debate.
Speaker 1: So in some ways you're resetting to the pre debate
Speaker 1: moment where we thought Joe Biden would run, or maybe
Speaker 1: Matt and I didn't think that, but most people assume
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden would run kind of this normal democratic
Speaker 1: campaign under slightly difficult circumstances. You know, I asked you
Speaker 1: to buy or sell before on Harris's nomination chances. Do
Speaker 1: you think thirty five percent is in the right general
Speaker 1: vicinity or do you want to kind of wait for
Speaker 1: more info before you make an assessment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not buying or selling for more info because
Speaker 2: I think the key question we have here, and I
Speaker 2: think this is kind of funny actually, is thatocrats need
Speaker 2: to really hope the problem was Biden's age, right, Like
Speaker 2: if the problem was Biden's age and not inflation and
Speaker 2: not sort of the policy's administration. Right, then you're looking great, right,
Speaker 2: like relatively speaking, right, And so I would like to
Speaker 2: wait because I think the Polley is going to be
Speaker 2: really important. And obviously, like I am the total layman here,
Speaker 2: you're the expert, but in the coming weeks about whether
Speaker 2: sort of that is an explanation and if Harris instantly
Speaker 2: has sort of like a exogenous shock of you know,
Speaker 2: three or four or five points relative to Biden a
Speaker 2: relative to where she was before, that's a big deal.
Speaker 2: And you know, well, you know, people won't be able
Speaker 2: to figure that out definitively. But if you see a
Speaker 2: jump for her, then maybe the Biden old thing was
Speaker 2: really dragging down a set of Democrats or a set
Speaker 2: of swing voters right, who are now like much more
Speaker 2: comfortable coming back to Harris. Now, I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's true, and she's got her own negatives, but I
Speaker 2: am definitely in wait and see mode. I certainly think
Speaker 2: the Democrats who all of a sudden think they have
Speaker 2: the answer are crazy. I think it is complete nonsense
Speaker 2: to be like, oh, now we've solved this and now
Speaker 2: we're favorites to win this. I can't even imagine that.
Speaker 2: And you know, and they have a long road ahead
Speaker 2: uphill with in my view, a less than perfect candidate,
Speaker 2: but someone that's improved their situation from where they were,
Speaker 2: at least on the extreme margin.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know what the poker analogy is, but
Speaker 1: maybe it's like that you hit like a hit, like
Speaker 1: a four outer, like chop the pot. This is getting
Speaker 1: very esoteric, right, but like you find some way to
Speaker 1: like salvage be able to continue gambling. And if you
Speaker 1: kind of read read accounts of like gambling addicts, then
Speaker 1: not that democratsic gamle adics are probably too risk averse
Speaker 1: on average. They just want to win to continue to play, right,
Speaker 1: not winning for winning's sake, but winning winning to play
Speaker 1: and like they're and they're in the game now at least.
Speaker 1: But yeah, look, it's ironic that like you would get
Speaker 1: yelled at for suggesting that Biden's age is the problem,
Speaker 1: because there are other issues too. I mean, incumbent parties
Speaker 1: all around the world have have been struggling. You know. Look,
Speaker 1: one thing that I think goes too often overlooked is
Speaker 1: that Democrats are still at a disadvantage in the electoral College.
Speaker 1: If anything, Biden's disadvantage might have narrowed a little bit
Speaker 1: because he was doing well. I wasn't doing better among anyone, right,
Speaker 1: but he was holding his numbers up better relatively speaking,
Speaker 1: with like older white voters versus any voters of color
Speaker 1: and any younger voters. So older states like Michigan, Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: that are pretty white Wisconsin were holding up comparatively well
Speaker 1: versus Georgia, for instance. Harris may do better overall. I
Speaker 1: think she probably will, but she may actually expand back
Speaker 1: out that electoral college popular vote gap, and that's tricky.
Speaker 1: I mean, you might bet she might be the favorite
Speaker 1: to win the popular vote. I don't know if she's
Speaker 1: the favorite to win the electoral college, unfortunately for Democrats.
Speaker 1: But let's give let's give, like a more optimistic version
Speaker 1: of it. It's November sixth, and Kamala Harris has one,
Speaker 1: let's say, by a compable enough margin where we're not
Speaker 1: still counting. The vote wasn't huge, but she won the
Speaker 1: popular vote by three points, and she won the Midwestern states,
Speaker 1: and say Nevada or something, tell me the story where
Speaker 1: this happened.
Speaker 2: I think the story where this happens is the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party unites behind her. Of course, that's a baseline must
Speaker 2: have her campaign gets off the ground without any sort
Speaker 2: of sputtering, which we could see. She turns out to
Speaker 2: be something of a better campaigner slash candidate slash charismatic
Speaker 2: leader than we observed in the primaries. She probably moderates
Speaker 2: her position successfully. I think this is gonna be the
Speaker 2: tough one for the Democrats to swallow, is that she
Speaker 2: really needs to move to the center from where she's been.
Speaker 2: She's grown up her entire career in politics and sort
Speaker 2: of the liberal sort of bastions and running up through
Speaker 2: California's system is like that proves some thing, like you're
Speaker 2: you're good at something, but it doesn't really challenge you
Speaker 2: to look for sort of swing voters nationally, and so
Speaker 2: she'll have to sort of figure out how to do that,
Speaker 2: and then I think after that the Biden age thing
Speaker 2: will have had to be sort of important, and then
Speaker 2: she will successfully, in my view, present a campaign that
Speaker 2: is forward looking versus backward looking. And I think that's
Speaker 2: the one thing she has going for her, is that
Speaker 2: if she wants to push this campaign into like Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's the past and I represent the future. That's a
Speaker 2: very strong sell in America, and it will be a
Speaker 2: contrast that might sort of pick her up the swing
Speaker 2: voters who have decided that not was Biden too old,
Speaker 2: and that when Biden represent the past, he's a silent
Speaker 2: generation dude, but that Trump is too uh, and that
Speaker 2: Trump is sort of clinging to a backwards looking old
Speaker 2: man thing. And look, I think you know, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's sort of like you. I don't
Speaker 2: think you just turn around and be like, well, our
Speaker 2: guy was too old, so we dumped him, and now
Speaker 2: you're guys too old, you are the problem. I don't
Speaker 2: think that quite works. Yeah out loud.
Speaker 1: People have to be a little bit careful about about yeah.
Speaker 1: And you've seen these happen a couple You've had Republicans
Speaker 1: say so some of the Biden I call them dead enders.
Speaker 1: We're saying, well, fourtune million people voted in the Democratic primaries.
Speaker 1: You know, actually in the state where I am, New York,
Speaker 1: every candidate but Driiden had already dropped out right by
Speaker 1: the time the Democrat New York would have had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to vote. And so it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: BS talking point, but that got recycled by Republicans, and likewise,
Speaker 1: this point about oh, you can't have someone who's going
Speaker 1: to be eighty years old during the presidential term run
Speaker 1: has now been used by Democrats. I mean, people voters
Speaker 1: have some type of memories, right, They actually are more
Speaker 1: resistant to hypocrisy than you might think. So give those
Speaker 1: arguments a little bit of time to dry out before
Speaker 1: you try to recycle them or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good, no, no, you got mat. I mean, I
Speaker 2: you know. One thing that for me personally has always
Speaker 2: been a problem here is that my main concern is
Speaker 2: about the age of Biden and Trump have never really
Speaker 2: been electoral concerns. Partisan voters will look past a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff, right like how far Biden and head of
Speaker 2: decline before the voters really started to sort of be
Speaker 2: concerned about it. My concern has always been that these
Speaker 2: guys are too old to do the governance job. And
Speaker 2: that's something that I think is really important. That we
Speaker 2: want someone who's competent twenty four to seven on call
Speaker 2: in the White House and energetic in a management capacity
Speaker 2: and a leadership quality. And I just don't think eighty
Speaker 2: year olds have it that said, that's not how must
Speaker 2: voters think. Most voters are cross pressured by their opinions
Speaker 2: on abortion and their views on taxes, and their ties
Speaker 2: sentimental ties to parties, and that's not how they think.
Speaker 2: And so I don't think there's anything that prevents a
Speaker 2: candidate who's going to be in their eighties like Trump
Speaker 2: or like Biden was four years ago, from winning an election.
Speaker 2: Voters are more than willing to overlook that stuff in
Speaker 2: the name of parsonship or ideology. And so you know,
Speaker 2: it's not sort of the definitive way to beat Trump.
Speaker 2: He's old. But I amused yesterday that Harris could run
Speaker 2: a campaign of something like he's too old, he's too extreme,
Speaker 2: he's too incompetent, and he's too dangerous, and make it
Speaker 2: part of the campaign, which would be sort of this
Speaker 2: forward looking campaign. Again, that's the optimistic I have for her.
Speaker 2: I'm not particularly optimistic about Harris. I think there's every
Speaker 2: chance in the world that she loses, and loses badly here.
Speaker 2: But the bigger point, and this isn't isn't news to you,
Speaker 2: is that you take your least worst options, and in
Speaker 2: a game thiry sense, when one path is foreclosed for you,
Speaker 2: and you are not going to win, you try another.
Speaker 2: The poker analogy is this, if you're at the river
Speaker 2: and you know you can't win by calling because you're
Speaker 2: holding six high, well then you stop thinking about calling,
Speaker 2: and you ever decide what's better folding or raising. And
Speaker 2: Biden at this point was the call with six high
Speaker 2: in some ways not exactly, but it was the call
Speaker 2: with a very weekend.
Speaker 1: I mean to sound like a little sports talk radio
Speaker 1: Bill Simmonsy. You know one reason I can imagine Harris winning,
Speaker 1: And again, I think we'll have our model out in
Speaker 1: a week or so. Thirty five percent seems like a
Speaker 1: sensible biggest line for now. She kind of has in
Speaker 1: a weird way. And I know people are gonna get
Speaker 1: mad because of the stakes and an election, but psychologically
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of like having nothing to lose.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about the VP. How much do you
Speaker 1: think the VP pick matters? And do you agree with
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom that you know the names that are better
Speaker 1: about the most, not bettered about better at about the
Speaker 1: most are like Shapiro, Andy Basher in Kentucky, who else?
Speaker 1: Whitmer a little bit, although it seemed people seem to
Speaker 1: think that you'd rather have at least one man on
Speaker 1: the ticket, Roy Cooper, do you have a preference between
Speaker 1: and among those and how much difference would you expect
Speaker 1: a VP pick to make well?
Speaker 2: In general, I would not expect a VP pick to
Speaker 2: make much difference at all in any sort of electoral sense.
Speaker 2: That's sort of the guiding history.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: That's often because you know, people at pick sort of
Speaker 2: like competent, traditionally sort of qualified vice presidents.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The one place we do see I think in the
Speaker 2: polling some drop off was with the plent pick. Right.
Speaker 2: If you make a terrible pick, right, like, it could
Speaker 2: go back for on you. But I think it's pretty
Speaker 2: hard to make a terrible pick. I think sort of
Speaker 2: internal party politics are just as important as anything else
Speaker 2: in a VP pick. It seems like the conventional wisdom
Speaker 2: is sort of like moderate white guy governor is the
Speaker 2: way to go here, sort of like this balancing of
Speaker 2: a scriptive representation, which is something that the parties are
Speaker 2: obsessed with. But I also think that the voters like,
Speaker 2: so I think it's okay. I think that Whitmer might
Speaker 2: be a good candidate, except that I think parties are
Speaker 2: very risk averse about things like putting two women in
Speaker 2: the ticket, both for like reasonable reasons. I think historically
Speaker 2: parties have always sort of run sort of like white
Speaker 2: Protestant dudes for a president because they're very worried that
Speaker 2: even if it only costs you half a point from
Speaker 2: someone who doesn't like Catholics or whatever, like half a
Speaker 2: point matters in elections like this is planned for keeps,
Speaker 2: and so they've been very risk averse about heading off
Speaker 2: into sort of minority group risk representation. And I think,
Speaker 2: right or wrong, the view would be that two women
Speaker 2: would potentially hurt you on the margins when the margins
Speaker 2: really matter. I think a lot of people also seeing
Speaker 2: ghosts from Clinton in twenty sixteen when they think that way,
Speaker 2: it's probably not that big a deal. But I think
Speaker 2: it is a deal, and so yeah, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I think the conventional wisdom now is that like Basher
Speaker 2: or Cooper North Carolina are like sort of people you
Speaker 2: might pick because there can you know, moderate white guys
Speaker 2: who have proven records and sort of reddish states. Shapiro
Speaker 2: is sort of more of a well, this guy could
Speaker 2: help us win Pennsylvania type pick. I think the the
Speaker 2: you know, the political science evidence is that maybe the
Speaker 2: VP could give you a point or two in their
Speaker 2: home state potentially, and that's not nothing in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: We're gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: pinch hitting today, Matt.
Speaker 2: All right, Nate, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: This is awesome for listeners. This is probably our early
Speaker 1: episode of the week, but we've said that before. There's
Speaker 1: world series of poker controversies to talk about, so expect
Speaker 1: back next week with a mix of poker, politics and
Speaker 1: everything else. But thank you for listening. Risky Business is
Speaker 1: hosted by me, Nate Silver and my co host Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 1: The show is a co production of Push Industries and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Isabel Carter and edited by
Speaker 1: Sarah Nix. Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. If you want to listen
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