Speaker 1: Hi, Brian, Hi Katie. Today our podcast is Bicoastal. Brian
Speaker 1: is in California. I am in New York. You probably
Speaker 1: are very well aware that the two thousand and sixteen
Speaker 1: presidential election is less than a week away. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's probably how you feel. Brian is the only person
Speaker 1: I think on the planet who's going to be sad, well,
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of cable networks as well to see
Speaker 1: this election come to a close. Are you having withdrawals yet? Brian? No,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to enjoy it. Well at last, it's
Speaker 1: like burning Man for me. I think, oh, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: such a Bernie Man guy. By the way, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's been plenty to keep us busy when it comes
Speaker 1: to talking about all things political. So much has happened.
Speaker 1: I think we could change the lyrics of the September
Speaker 1: song to the November song. Brian, don't you I feel
Speaker 1: like this is your queue. Oh it's a long, long
Speaker 1: while from me to November. I was right about that.
Speaker 1: I like that it was nice Bobrado, But so much
Speaker 1: has happened. I mean, it's really hard to keep all
Speaker 1: this straight, isn't it. Well, there's a rich history of
Speaker 1: October surprises in American politics. You go back to eight
Speaker 1: there was a bombing halt in North Vietnam, which was
Speaker 1: supposed to help then Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. In seventy two,
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger said pieces at hand, also in Vietnam, and
Speaker 1: that supposedly helped Nixon into The former Reagan Defense secretary
Speaker 1: was indicted, which supposedly hurt George H. W. Bush. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of examples of this. Shall answer man,
Speaker 1: what happened in for crying out loud? What was a
Speaker 1: internal action? Sorry, of course it was scratch that you
Speaker 1: want to talk about at the McKinley ray. But but
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting about all of these October surprises,
Speaker 1: from Bush's d w I to the bin Laden tape
Speaker 1: to Hurricane Sandy, just to deploy a few more, is
Speaker 1: we're unsure about what the electoral impact is. It's very
Speaker 1: hard to prove causation, and so we really don't know.
Speaker 1: To use a phrase that's not often used by the media,
Speaker 1: we really don't know what this means. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to wait and see what somebody who
Speaker 1: probably has a good idea is Nate Silver he's become
Speaker 1: almost a godlike figure for political junkies. Has any Brian?
Speaker 1: He is, he is a god among geeks and I
Speaker 1: include myself proudly in that category. Uh. He's he's invented
Speaker 1: a whole new category really of journalism in which he
Speaker 1: uses analytics and statistical models to put pulling into this
Speaker 1: big machine that he's created and hopefully push wisdom out
Speaker 1: that will give us a little bit of a better
Speaker 1: sense about where the race actually stands. And you are
Speaker 1: so excited that he's our guests on today's podcast, aren't you? Brian?
Speaker 1: I am all a flutter, even from three thousand miles away.
Speaker 1: I need silver welcome. It is so great to have
Speaker 1: you cool, Thank you for having me, Katie. First, we
Speaker 1: have to start out with comy Gate. Yeah, how big
Speaker 1: a bombshell or how big an impact do you think
Speaker 1: this is going to have on the election? So it's
Speaker 1: a little hard to tell, which is none of a
Speaker 1: very satisfying answer. Um, we began to detect another people
Speaker 1: who average poles begin to detect some momentum back toward
Speaker 1: Trump about a week ago, a week and a half
Speaker 1: ago or so, um, where he had had a very
Speaker 1: very bad string of events with three debates that he
Speaker 1: was judged to have lost. UM, the UH, the access
Speaker 1: Hollywood tape I'm never quite sure how to refer to
Speaker 1: the P word tape. UM. And then all these accusations
Speaker 1: were women that he had sexually assaulted them, and it
Speaker 1: was about is a bad um a three weeks as
Speaker 1: a candic can have. UM. I'm not saying any of
Speaker 1: it isn't his fault, right, but you know, sometimes when
Speaker 1: you go from a terrible news cycle to a better
Speaker 1: new cycle, you begin to rebound just because your own
Speaker 1: base begins to come home to you. So we began
Speaker 1: to see Trump's numbers begin to go up, not by
Speaker 1: leaps and bounds, but a little bit um as you
Speaker 1: regain Republican votes. UM. And then you had Friday when
Speaker 1: you have this FBI news another story. I'm not quite
Speaker 1: sure how to characterize it exactly, but comy, we'll call
Speaker 1: it UM. And we've seen some further tightening since then,
Speaker 1: although it's not clear whether that was already baked dinner
Speaker 1: because of of Comy. My impression is that UM. Trump
Speaker 1: had gained one or two points on Clinton over the
Speaker 1: past two weeks and maybe gained another point or so
Speaker 1: UM over the weekend. And when you describe the tightening, Nate,
Speaker 1: just to be clear, are you talking about Hillary going
Speaker 1: down at all or is it just Trump coming up
Speaker 1: with core Republican voter. That's it's the latter. We know
Speaker 1: Trump's coming up. How much that is for publicans versus independence,
Speaker 1: Probably a mix of both. But she's in national polls
Speaker 1: she has stayed at about UM and Trump's gone from
Speaker 1: now forty one or so, so he's regained some ground
Speaker 1: on Clinton UM. But you know, forty one percent not
Speaker 1: enough to win. For that matter, forty six percent is
Speaker 1: not quite enough. So it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: if she gets another point or two out of her
Speaker 1: base gets up to forty seven, she gets to be
Speaker 1: in a pretty safe position. If she gets stuck, she's
Speaker 1: probably a favorite, but it'll be more suspense on election day.
Speaker 1: And if she declines, then things are really competitive. And
Speaker 1: there's I guess some speculation, isn't there, that that there
Speaker 1: may be something brewing at the FBI, some kind of
Speaker 1: investigation involving Donald Trump, and the Democrats would like nothing
Speaker 1: more than have that get leaked to say we'll wait
Speaker 1: a second. They may be looking at these emails on
Speaker 1: Anthony Wiener's device. That sounded dirty. I'm so sorry, but
Speaker 1: they're also teen at potential bad behavior on the part
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, the Russian government and the hacking of emails.
Speaker 1: Right well, Trump creates problem by Thursday, we should know,
Speaker 1: I mean, incidentally, we should point out to the listeners
Speaker 1: that were recording this on Monday, were in the time machine,
Speaker 1: and when people hear this on Thursday, you know, we
Speaker 1: could have like three or four front page New York
Speaker 1: Times scandals between now and that's. I mean, it had
Speaker 1: been this kind of oddly anticlimactic finish before the comy
Speaker 1: thing struck. You know, the debates kind of inted early
Speaker 1: this year, and it's been a long campaign, so I
Speaker 1: think that's part of why people jumped on it. They
Speaker 1: kind of proclaimed it to be a huge game changer,
Speaker 1: um before people have seen any evidence for really what
Speaker 1: it was or how it would move the polls. How
Speaker 1: responsible do you think the media is for jenning this up?
Speaker 1: I know you tweeted quote. The FBI story also broke
Speaker 1: at the exact time when the media was eager for
Speaker 1: a dramatic twist slash complication in the Clinton Coast narrative.
Speaker 1: I mean, so to give a counterexample, think about Wiki leaks,
Speaker 1: and that's never really broken through and been the main story,
Speaker 1: in part because that was, um, We're all coming out
Speaker 1: at the time that Trump was making a lot of news,
Speaker 1: and by the time that Trump quieted down, Wiki leaks
Speaker 1: was old news. So I do think the timing matters
Speaker 1: a lot. Julian was probably so pistol and if he
Speaker 1: releases in the primaries where you'd have more um, inter
Speaker 1: party warfare, and that might have been more devastating for Clinton. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, I do have the sense that, um, look,
Speaker 1: the media has incentives to to play up how competitive
Speaker 1: the races. Trumpet had a very difficult for your weeks.
Speaker 1: They were working the rests a lot, and I do
Speaker 1: think that, um. And by the way, is also though
Speaker 1: that you had this very exciting, devastating, impactful bulletin right
Speaker 1: and then it didn't really live up to the billing,
Speaker 1: and so people are are hesitant to adjust for that sometimes.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting Clinton decided I'm not gonna go
Speaker 1: after the media. I'm gonna go after Comey himself. If
Speaker 1: it were a Republican, they would say, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you made his guys made something out of nothing, and
Speaker 1: you've got headline wrong on this and that. But Democrats
Speaker 1: don't attack the media in the way that Republicans often
Speaker 1: very effectively due to rile up their base. But Brian
Speaker 1: and Nate, I mean, don't you think it's so strange
Speaker 1: that there will not be any kind of resolution to
Speaker 1: this whole quote unquote crisis before the election. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's what they're There are hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: emails or thousands anyway, I guess sid and all, but
Speaker 1: a lot of those are Anthony Weiner's emails, right, Brian,
Speaker 1: So what kind of impact I'm interested from you? Brian
Speaker 1: n Nate? Does this kind of dark cloud have hanging
Speaker 1: over Hillary Clinton's head? Are people going to dismiss it
Speaker 1: and say it's a much ado about nothing? Well, we'll see.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's been some reporting that the FBI would
Speaker 1: try to make some characterization like, oh, there's something new
Speaker 1: here or there's not right. What's too late for that? Though?
Speaker 1: Maybe if there's day Friday, they can If they said
Speaker 1: that Monday morning or Tuesday morning, right while people are
Speaker 1: are voting, how does that affect things potentially? And by
Speaker 1: the way, um, you know, a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the country have voted. About a quarter of the vote
Speaker 1: roughly is in in swing states with early voting, their
Speaker 1: states like Nevada, where substantial numbers, maybe more than half
Speaker 1: the vote will be done before election day, and so
Speaker 1: you know the election is already underway. Now I've heard
Speaker 1: that that is good news for Hillary Clinton in terms
Speaker 1: of the way early voting is shaping up in states
Speaker 1: like Florida. What are you sort of postulating from those
Speaker 1: early voting returns. So it's a little tricky because Democrats
Speaker 1: usually put a bigger emphasis on early voting But the
Speaker 1: two states where her numbers look good are North Carolina
Speaker 1: and Nevada. Um. North Carolina registration is by party Idiana
Speaker 1: Nevada for that matter. UM. And so you see not
Speaker 1: necessarily the African American turnout that Obama had, but you
Speaker 1: see big support from highly educated white people, which in
Speaker 1: North Carolina you actually have quite a few of in
Speaker 1: the research triangle and Charlotte and whatnot, and they're turning out. Um,
Speaker 1: we presume for Clinton in big numbers. UM. And Nevada
Speaker 1: is a case where it's a low turnout state. If
Speaker 1: you have a ground game the other can it does not,
Speaker 1: then that's a big advantage when we should say Republicans
Speaker 1: have a history of showing up in much larger numbers
Speaker 1: on election day and making up deficits with early voting.
Speaker 1: So it's not clear yet that there isn't gonna be
Speaker 1: a huge Trump turnout on November eight, right, Um, But
Speaker 1: it does mean that if you hear about a low turnout,
Speaker 1: usually think of Democrats want to hire turn out. Right?
Speaker 1: It could be that if you have a lower turnout
Speaker 1: in some states on November eighth, then you know that
Speaker 1: Democrats have already banked a lot of votes there for
Speaker 1: the higher proportion of the vote, And so you know
Speaker 1: which can you wants to hear reports of higher turnouts?
Speaker 1: A little bit unclear this time around? Can I ask
Speaker 1: a stupid question? When it comes to early voting. They
Speaker 1: don't get counted until after election day, do they? So
Speaker 1: what many states do is they'll report statistics by party
Speaker 1: I D. So we know, for example that um, something
Speaker 1: like forty thou more Democrats and Republicans have voted as
Speaker 1: of Sunday in Clark County, Nevada. That Nember might be wrong,
Speaker 1: but somewhere in that ballpark right. Um. Either way, people
Speaker 1: in Nevada get very pissed when you call it Nevada.
Speaker 1: He said, well, well, Nate said Nevada first, and then
Speaker 1: I was like, you go, Nate, and Donald Trump says Nevada.
Speaker 1: But the only possible thing I could teach you today
Speaker 1: that you don't already know, but half my families from there,
Speaker 1: and they hate Nevada. I don't know why. Let's call
Speaker 1: the whole thing off. Brian, you know Savada and I
Speaker 1: say Nevada. The word for a person from Utah is
Speaker 1: a Utah, not a Utah. And oh I didn't know people.
Speaker 1: They both sound strange syllables. See I learned something today
Speaker 1: from Nate. Did you know that I did not? I
Speaker 1: got us off. Let's talk about undecided voters because Brian
Speaker 1: and I talked about this and we're like, who the
Speaker 1: hell is undecided at this point in this crazy election?
Speaker 1: Could there really be people who are saying Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, which one? I love them both, right? Or
Speaker 1: are the undecided really choosing between Trump or a third party,
Speaker 1: or Hillary Clinton or staying at home? I mean, what
Speaker 1: do we know about the pool of undecided? So we
Speaker 1: know that there are people who mostly like President Obama,
Speaker 1: but I think the country is on the wrong track,
Speaker 1: which is a weird set of circumstances. We know that
Speaker 1: people who mostly dislike both candidates, there aren't a lot
Speaker 1: of people who love their choices. Um. To me, these
Speaker 1: feel like people who might wind up staying at home
Speaker 1: and and sitting out. UM. The only silver lining to
Speaker 1: the Clinton campaign from comy gate is that I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're pretty happy that they people feel the election is
Speaker 1: compative enough that their vote matters, because you always worry
Speaker 1: about complacency and election where there's a lot of uncertainty
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of undecided That's how Trump wins. Right.
Speaker 1: If Trump's undecideds come out and Clinton's don't, um, then
Speaker 1: he has a path. It's so much about turnout, isn't it. Um.
Speaker 1: Some states it matters more than others. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you have early voting in a state, in some ways
Speaker 1: there's more opportunity to take advantage of it. The ground
Speaker 1: game probably matters more in a state like Pennsylvania where
Speaker 1: you know who your voters are and it's just smarrogating
Speaker 1: them to turn out. Then in a state like New
Speaker 1: Hampshire where there are a lot of swing voters. That's
Speaker 1: a persuasion state. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, these are states where Ohio,
Speaker 1: these are states where it's a turnout state. Well, when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to talk about what makes
Speaker 1: Nate silver tick or analyze or I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is you do exactly, what would you say curate?
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I don't know, report, I guess in
Speaker 1: a weird way. And and also I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you more about polling and how reliable it is
Speaker 1: and when it's been wrong and if it could be
Speaker 1: wrong this go round. So we'll do that right after this.
Speaker 1: So we asked, and you all very nicely answered. We
Speaker 1: asked how you're coping in these final days of this
Speaker 1: insane election cycle. Hi, Katie, this is Shelley Davy. How
Speaker 1: I've been managing to cope through this election season is
Speaker 1: to use them as teachable moments for my thirteen year
Speaker 1: old and my ten year old. There's plenty of good
Speaker 1: examples and bad examples to choose from, and with my
Speaker 1: thirteen year old in particular, we now have a new statement.
Speaker 1: If behavior is going badly, we say, don't be a
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And it usually stops him in his tracks.
Speaker 1: Thanks for your show. Bye Wow. Oh gosh, that's a
Speaker 1: sad commentary, isn't it, Brian? It is it is, and
Speaker 1: we hope that some Trump supporters will call in and
Speaker 1: let us know how they're teaching their children as well. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we have another caller. Hello. My name is Madeline ben Kane,
Speaker 1: and you asked about coping mechanisms for surviving the election.
Speaker 1: What I do is write political limericks. Here's a sample.
Speaker 1: It's cool going to town about the election. This election
Speaker 1: is nearing its end. None to shoot. I've gone plunged
Speaker 1: round the bend. I can't handle more. Gie. If my
Speaker 1: mind's taken a dive, it needs Hillary's village to mend.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. I've been enjoying your podcast. Take care
Speaker 1: bye bye. Quite a poet. I like limericks. That's very funny,
Speaker 1: and that's actually a nice way to let off steam. Brian,
Speaker 1: what have you been doing? Have you been doing anything
Speaker 1: to kind of disconnect from all of this stuff? I
Speaker 1: listened to podcasts about the election to disconnect from the
Speaker 1: election generally. Nate Silver, it's always great to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like a rock star because all my
Speaker 1: friends say, Nate Silver says, well, I've had Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: I mean, they drop your name like it's going out
Speaker 1: of style, just having funny to you. It's weird. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it happens once every four years, then a
Speaker 1: very small spike around the mid term before we talk
Speaker 1: more about this crazy campaign. By the way, do you
Speaker 1: feel like that's all you can talk about? And do
Speaker 1: you wonder what you're going to start talking about on
Speaker 1: November nine? I mean, I found some Frequent Flower Award
Speaker 1: tickets to Italy And are you going to go away? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean not right away, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: risk of their being after math. I mean, just think
Speaker 1: of all the scenarios between recounts. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the senate's really close now too, and so you could
Speaker 1: have a recount in a Senate race that matters between
Speaker 1: I hope not, but civil unrest between an electoral college
Speaker 1: popular route split, which is a likelier outcome than people
Speaker 1: might think. Um, so you know, and just if Trump loses,
Speaker 1: does he concede? If Trump wins, how is the country react?
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, but no, I mean it makes me
Speaker 1: exhausted just thinking about it. Now. That's to dinner, and
Speaker 1: the other table near me was talking about how Maine
Speaker 1: in Nebraska they're not my friends, right, split their votes
Speaker 1: by congressional district, and so people are it's very hard
Speaker 1: to get away from the election. Um let's talk. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about you, Nate, shall we. You grew up in Michigan.
Speaker 1: What's a nice boy like you doing in a crazy
Speaker 1: business like this? And it's kind of unintentional, you know,
Speaker 1: I covered? Um So, I went to college, got agree
Speaker 1: in economics from the University of Chicago and Chicago, got
Speaker 1: a consult go Cubs. I was, got a consulting job,
Speaker 1: got bored, started working on the side to develop a
Speaker 1: midle of the forecast how baseball players we do and
Speaker 1: write about baseball for several years, um and then figure
Speaker 1: out if people are spending all this time doing analytics
Speaker 1: on Baseball's was the time when shortly after Moneyball came out,
Speaker 1: I want to take the same approach towards politics. And
Speaker 1: this was in early or late two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: Um So, you had a spectacular Democratic primary, very interesting
Speaker 1: for that matter, Republican primary, and then a historic general election.
Speaker 1: Um So, it was kind of being in the right
Speaker 1: place at the right time. It's so interesting to me
Speaker 1: because you grew up with your two passions math and sports, right,
Speaker 1: So so how did that morph into politics? I mean
Speaker 1: just because my frustration, because you've seen progress in the
Speaker 1: way sports was covered became more analytical, a little smarter.
Speaker 1: Um And you know, UM, I'm not sure that's true
Speaker 1: of political coverage. I mean, very much value good reporting,
Speaker 1: but um, but the average pundit is not particularly data driven,
Speaker 1: doesn't know that much about polling, makes a lot of
Speaker 1: assertions without evidence. UM than two thousand eight, for example,
Speaker 1: people were like, well, Hillary is gonna win for sure
Speaker 1: in Obama, you know, too far behind. Of course that
Speaker 1: was before Iowa and Iowa UM is often more predictive
Speaker 1: the results than than national polls early in the primary race.
Speaker 1: So it's more out of frustration where it's like, I
Speaker 1: have to build this myself. I guess, Nate, where do
Speaker 1: you go from here? Are you going to continue to
Speaker 1: be with five thirty eight? I know you're working with
Speaker 1: ESPN and ABC now you deep kind of through the
Speaker 1: New York Times over there. You dumped the New York Times,
Speaker 1: which is, well, who does that need? We're only we're
Speaker 1: only two blocks in a building they might be listening
Speaker 1: in on this, but um no, look five three D
Speaker 1: is a whole wonderful biased website and then we have
Speaker 1: thirty or thirty five journalists working for us. We cover economics, sports,
Speaker 1: politics that aren't just elections, and so we have a
Speaker 1: robust site. I know people love our election coverage, um,
Speaker 1: but we're looking forward to getting a little bit of rest, um,
Speaker 1: to letting our non politics coverage shine. But also there
Speaker 1: are going to be consequences to this election, win or lose.
Speaker 1: They're going to persist for for many years. If you
Speaker 1: cover policial living. It's good in that sense that you're
Speaker 1: not going to be bored anytime soon. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: going to take a lot of time again regardless of
Speaker 1: who wins, too to unwrap everything that's that's happened. You
Speaker 1: wrote a piece actually about why you got Trump so wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: until November December, until about a year ago, Um, we
Speaker 1: were quite skeptical. And why was that? I mean, did
Speaker 1: you just not see it coming? Or well, you know,
Speaker 1: there aren't a lot of historical examples of primaries or
Speaker 1: seven team way primaries, but look, Trump did violate um,
Speaker 1: a lot of history where there's never been anything remotely
Speaker 1: like this, at least in my lifetime. I'm thirty eight.
Speaker 1: And if you're making forecasts, you're kind of trying to
Speaker 1: make extrapolations from history. So when something unusual happens, Um,
Speaker 1: you're liable to get that wrong. The question is still,
Speaker 1: if you kind of replayed that race a hundred times,
Speaker 1: how often would Trump when I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, he proved that there's a very different Republican
Speaker 1: electorate than a lot of us thought. On the other hand, Um,
Speaker 1: he had the element of surprise where there hadn't been
Speaker 1: a candidate like him, Um, where he committed so much
Speaker 1: attention to kind of rode the momentum from the polls
Speaker 1: and made sure that he took up so much oxygen
Speaker 1: that you could never have remember the day when Um
Speaker 1: kind of brilliant, tactically right. Rubio had had some debate,
Speaker 1: I forget which one. There were so many some debate
Speaker 1: whe Rubio done really well, was getting very good buzz. Um.
Speaker 1: It was kind of catching up to Trump. And then
Speaker 1: that's when Trump unveiled Chris Christie's endorsementyone dropped what they
Speaker 1: were doing and went and covered Trump and of course
Speaker 1: it was very theatrical. They had like flown Chris Christie
Speaker 1: out somewhere surreptitiously. Um so his sense of theater and
Speaker 1: a sense of kind of how do you cater to
Speaker 1: the twenty of people who are really interested in your product?
Speaker 1: I mean that was a very trying out to be
Speaker 1: very helpful instinct for him. But you know, it does
Speaker 1: go against a lot of history. You guess what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is that at some point, um, the polls override
Speaker 1: the history. At some point, when you get into November
Speaker 1: December and Trump has a big lead nationally and a
Speaker 1: lade in most wing states, um or most early primary states,
Speaker 1: I should say then I think we're a little slow
Speaker 1: on the draw there, certainly. Well, and it's interesting you
Speaker 1: you assigned very specific odds or percentages to Trump's chances.
Speaker 1: You put his chances at two percent in August and December.
Speaker 1: I think people would be really interested in kind of
Speaker 1: peeling back the curtain and learning a little bit more
Speaker 1: about how the eight machine works and why the process
Speaker 1: for assigning odds to Trump was so different from what
Speaker 1: you're doing right now. Well, I think people lose the context,
Speaker 1: and you know, I kind of think in percentages, right,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of if someone's like, what's the chance
Speaker 1: you want to get Italian food tonight or whatever? Right?
Speaker 1: When people putting often probably maybe I don't know. Um.
Speaker 1: When um, when we put numbers some things, people assume
Speaker 1: that means it's a model, and usually it is. Right
Speaker 1: when we say that Clinton has a seventy four chance
Speaker 1: of winning, that comes from an algorithm. A program will
Speaker 1: just kind of feed data in. Obviously there's a lot
Speaker 1: of thought and how the programs put together. It's not
Speaker 1: like it has a mind of its own. Um, But
Speaker 1: you know that is the output from a computer program.
Speaker 1: The Trump forecast were we're not and I think in
Speaker 1: the future, to be honest, we're gonna avoid putting numbers
Speaker 1: on things unless it actually is the output of a
Speaker 1: model or a forecast. And when you talk about feeding
Speaker 1: in the data, you're talking about aggregating a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of polls. Basically every poll is incorporated in the model
Speaker 1: in in some way, right, Um, And it's all automated.
Speaker 1: I mean, someone has to manually enter in the polls.
Speaker 1: But whenever a polls entered into a database, that triggers
Speaker 1: a run of the forecast that occurs on a server
Speaker 1: and so we're not intervening in the program once it's built. Um,
Speaker 1: there can be bugs, and we fix the bugs to
Speaker 1: be honest. But um, that's why I like all they say, Oh,
Speaker 1: Nate's giving Clinton chance now in Pennsylvania. It's like, not really.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like a computer program that my colleagues
Speaker 1: and I designed has given her that chance based on
Speaker 1: on polls that are kind of automatically fit into the model.
Speaker 1: And then I guess that's a perfect segue though, Brian
Speaker 1: to the question about how how accurate are these polls?
Speaker 1: You know, there's been so speculation about polling today and
Speaker 1: about are they really legitimate reflections of the electorate. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I know the response rate for posters has
Speaker 1: gone down. Now there's online polling, there's telephone polling. Um,
Speaker 1: there there's a lot of talk about a secret Trump
Speaker 1: vote that's not being reflected honestly in the polls because
Speaker 1: people are embarrassed to say they're supporting Donald Trump. So
Speaker 1: where do you stand on all of this? And does
Speaker 1: it worry you that the data you're using to come
Speaker 1: up with these percentages just isn't right? So the percentages
Speaker 1: account for the possible of the polls could be systematically wrong.
Speaker 1: So again, we're recording this on on Monday. As of Monday,
Speaker 1: Clinton is ahead in the polls in more than enough states. Right.
Speaker 1: She's ahead in the polls in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, Nevada,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, more than enough states. Right. However, Um, there's
Speaker 1: a chance of polls could be wrong, and we say
Speaker 1: there's a chance that Trump could win. Some of that
Speaker 1: is the possibility of another October surprise or November surprise.
Speaker 1: It would be at this point, um. But it's also
Speaker 1: that the polls could turn out to be relatively far off.
Speaker 1: I mean to have a four or five point polling
Speaker 1: nous is on the high side, but not unheard of.
Speaker 1: In the Brexit vote, you had about a four point
Speaker 1: miss in two thousand people. Forget this one. Bush was
Speaker 1: favored by three or four points in the popular vote
Speaker 1: and lost the popular vote. But you know, we actually
Speaker 1: have the model that gives the best chance to Trump.
Speaker 1: There are other people who have models that process the
Speaker 1: data in a different way that literally give him a
Speaker 1: one percent chance. When we say it's a chance, and
Speaker 1: we think those models do not account sufficiently for the
Speaker 1: possibility of a of a systematic error in the polling.
Speaker 1: And just to break this down a little bit further,
Speaker 1: when you build your model, do you assign greater weight
Speaker 1: or influence to certain polls that you think are better
Speaker 1: than others? Because I know a lot of campaign professionals
Speaker 1: look at some public polls and say, you know, those
Speaker 1: are well done and others that they think are just crap. Yeah. UM,
Speaker 1: you know, we do weight polls based on a formula
Speaker 1: that looks at how accurate they've been historically. Plus UM
Speaker 1: a couple of methodological benchmarks. So one is are you
Speaker 1: a live collar poll that calls cell phones as well
Speaker 1: as landlines. It's still kind of the gold industry standard
Speaker 1: practice UM. And number two is are you part of
Speaker 1: UM disclosure and transparency initiatives where the pulster is revealing
Speaker 1: substantial amounts of information about how the poll was conducted,
Speaker 1: who was called, everything else? Right. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to try and use all the
Speaker 1: data that we can. UM. As response rates to telephone
Speaker 1: poles decrease, online polls, we actually respond to more UM.
Speaker 1: The problem is that it's hard to get a random
Speaker 1: sample online, So Frankly, we're happy. I think that we
Speaker 1: have the mix we have right now of telephone polls
Speaker 1: and online polls. They don't always tell the same story.
Speaker 1: The online polls have the race a little closer. Um,
Speaker 1: they also show a steadier race, though they tend not
Speaker 1: to show the swings that telephone poles do. And then
Speaker 1: why is that and why is it harder to get
Speaker 1: a random sampling online? I don't understand that because I
Speaker 1: can call you, so it used to be probably not anymore, right, Um,
Speaker 1: But I used to could call you or your family
Speaker 1: by randomly dialing a number on the phone, right, And
Speaker 1: I know that let's say seven seven, two four or
Speaker 1: three six and then dotill last four. We know that
Speaker 1: those prefixes or suffixes work, right, right, That's how I
Speaker 1: used to make crank calls in junior high. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: it's the same principle. But now, um, that's become much harder.
Speaker 1: People number one don't us their phone number two. People
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have land lines to begin with. They have
Speaker 1: cell phones. The phone number, you know, I still have
Speaker 1: a a Chicago area cell phone number. I've lived in
Speaker 1: New York for for seven years. Interesting, it's just find
Speaker 1: ways around that. But you know, but so it's becoming
Speaker 1: hard to get some randomly, it's still it's easier, at
Speaker 1: least in theory. UM. Then, I mean, how kind of
Speaker 1: randomly ping someone online? Do I have their email? I
Speaker 1: mean maybe if I'm the N s A or something
Speaker 1: I do. Right, You know, some services trying to interrupt you.
Speaker 1: Instead of showing you an AD, they'll show you a poll.
Speaker 1: But if you're perturbed by that interruption, you might just
Speaker 1: click on whatever candidate's name you see first to get through.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I get those sometimes, Brian, do you
Speaker 1: when you're reading an article or you're online. I get
Speaker 1: these polls, but I always think they're crazy spam and
Speaker 1: if I open it, someone will infect my whole Gmail
Speaker 1: account or yeah, who can actually the opposite. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't respond online polls, but I do sometimes respond
Speaker 1: to telephone posters, but I don't know. They scare me.
Speaker 1: The online poll scare me because you never know if
Speaker 1: they're legitimate or not, and what they're going to do
Speaker 1: to your and our legitimate you know. And the key
Speaker 1: differentiator is is a poll trying to get a random
Speaker 1: and representative sample of the electorate. Um You can try
Speaker 1: and do that and still screw it up. But are
Speaker 1: you trying to do it versus a poll which is
Speaker 1: purely voluntary, right that the Drudge Report quote unquote poll
Speaker 1: or the local news station that has a quote unquote
Speaker 1: poll that people can just click from anywhere as many
Speaker 1: times as they want. Those don't tell you anything. It
Speaker 1: So the polls that Trump sites that showed him winning
Speaker 1: all three debate we're not scientific polls. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people misunderstood that well. I think he's
Speaker 1: deliberately obscuring the boundary. Now the resist tightened a little bit.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, he cites these polls that he likes, right,
Speaker 1: He's very opportunistic, although, to be honest, lots of people
Speaker 1: are opportunistic about Oh, all of a sudden, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're probably with ABC News some little biased here,
Speaker 1: but ABC News Watchington Post Bowl is a very good poll,
Speaker 1: um good track record. When it went from showing a
Speaker 1: twelve point lead for Clinton to a one point lead,
Speaker 1: um Democrats all of a sudden found a lot of
Speaker 1: methodological flaws they hadn't thought about before. But that does
Speaker 1: seem kind of like a huge, huge drop in her support.
Speaker 1: That's why you take an average, right. I mean, the
Speaker 1: key is you never take anyone poll to be the
Speaker 1: gospel truth. Right. You treat every individual polling result skeptically.
Speaker 1: And yet lo and behold, if you're able to aggregate,
Speaker 1: um several dozen polls together, you can get a pretty
Speaker 1: accurate reading, usually on the race. And what about is
Speaker 1: Katie mentioned this theory that has a lot of sway
Speaker 1: among Trump supporters that there are missing millions of white
Speaker 1: voters whom Trump is gonna energize and bring out to
Speaker 1: the polls. I mean, look, on the one hand, we
Speaker 1: say there as a possibility of an error in either direction. Um.
Speaker 1: It could also be that UM polls are under sampling
Speaker 1: Latino voters, for example, especially those that don't speak English.
Speaker 1: But I would say a couple of things about Trump supporters.
Speaker 1: Number one, Um, you didn't see this happen in the
Speaker 1: primaries where Trump was underestimated by people like me, but
Speaker 1: not based on the polls. The polls actually did a
Speaker 1: very good job of pegging Trump's vote. In fact, there
Speaker 1: were some states like Iowa where he was overestimated by
Speaker 1: the polls. UM. And number two, you know the notion
Speaker 1: of a shy Trump voter. I'm not sure how many
Speaker 1: Trump voters you've met, but shy is not the first
Speaker 1: word that would come to mind. Um, not so much shy.
Speaker 1: But I think there are there there, at least people
Speaker 1: that I have met who I think are not outwardly
Speaker 1: supporting him, but would tell you privately, or tell some
Speaker 1: people privately that they were supporting him. I don't know
Speaker 1: any of these secret Trump supporters. The Trump supporters I
Speaker 1: know are pretty loud and proud about it, but I
Speaker 1: keep hearing these stories that you know, there are Trump
Speaker 1: supporters who don't want to tell their liberal friends at
Speaker 1: dinner parties and don't want to incite a big argument,
Speaker 1: and so they don't mention it. But we'll see on
Speaker 1: election day. And you know, why is Donald Trump doing
Speaker 1: so well among non college educated white voters? Is there
Speaker 1: anything in your sort of data other than the fact
Speaker 1: that his message is resonating and that there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people in this country who feel marginalized and disenfranchised.
Speaker 1: I mean, so to put a little perspective on this,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump isn't doing that well except relatively speaking. Right,
Speaker 1: He's only has even with his search lightly only has
Speaker 1: about forty one the vote. That's pretty low. Mitt Romney
Speaker 1: got forty seven per cent. UM, but you know, bad
Speaker 1: number from bad number from Romney. UM. To be perfectly honest,
Speaker 1: I think the data suggests that UM, racial anxiety is
Speaker 1: strongly correlated with some types of Trump supporters. That's part
Speaker 1: of it. UM. Part of it also is that UM
Speaker 1: that he gets a lot of loyal Republicans, not all
Speaker 1: of them, but some of them to turn out for him. UM.
Speaker 1: I think part of it is that there's a certain
Speaker 1: anti elitism, and Trump has become a champion kind of
Speaker 1: culturally of the working class. I think it has more
Speaker 1: to do with culture than economics per se. And this
Speaker 1: is a big debate in the literature. UM and culture
Speaker 1: and race and economics education. These are all blurry boundaries
Speaker 1: between those categories. UM. But certainly in the primaries of
Speaker 1: states where Trump did well are places where you historically
Speaker 1: had higher rates of anti black racism. One in the
Speaker 1: general election, isn't hyperpartisanship a huge factor? You know, Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan got about a quarter of the Democratic vote. It's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine anything like that happening today because we
Speaker 1: all live in our little bubbles and we get information
Speaker 1: that reinforces what we already believe. And so if you're
Speaker 1: a Republican, I think you kind of think Hillary is
Speaker 1: worse as bad as Trump is on some stuff. You
Speaker 1: probably think, you know, based on everything you're hearing. I mean,
Speaker 1: we all get so used talking about Trump, but um,
Speaker 1: most Hillary voters are voting for Clinton because of Clinton,
Speaker 1: and most Trump voters voting for Trump because of Clinton.
Speaker 1: So Clinton is actually the kind of key um figure
Speaker 1: in the race in in some ways, I hate to
Speaker 1: say it, but in some ways, the kind of very
Speaker 1: ill put comment Clinton made about deplorables was kind of
Speaker 1: getting in the direction of how you might go about
Speaker 1: dividing his support up if you have you know, maybe
Speaker 1: that is from people who, um, who don't like people
Speaker 1: who don't look like them. But there is a lot
Speaker 1: too that is for other reasons, and for um, for
Speaker 1: anti Clinton, for partisan reasons. There are people who think
Speaker 1: he is a breath of fresh area. And as you said,
Speaker 1: I mean, all these things are very hard to quantify,
Speaker 1: and I imagine, Nate, I'm sure there's a lot of overlap.
Speaker 1: There's some you know, probably then diagrams all over the
Speaker 1: place that have people who fall into maybe both categories, right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean, and you and you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think we're learning. One of the big mistakes I think
Speaker 1: people made this year was underestimating the kind of complexity
Speaker 1: other Republican electorate, where people said, well, um, you have
Speaker 1: the aablishment lane and the evangelical lane and the libertarian
Speaker 1: lane and whatever else, right, And in fact, those voters
Speaker 1: are all kind of all over the place, right, uh,
Speaker 1: and they all have a degree of being fed up
Speaker 1: with Washington and frustrated. So you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: certainly the mood that Trump invokes. And we are getting
Speaker 1: a little subjective here, but you know, the convention speech
Speaker 1: that he delivered, um was a dark, even angry speech.
Speaker 1: I'd like to go to go out on a limb
Speaker 1: if you could nate. Um, if the election were held
Speaker 1: tomorrow instead of a week from tomorrow, what do you
Speaker 1: think is going to happen? I mean, this is why
Speaker 1: we put things in probabilities, right, because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: it's not so close, I don't think, and again we're
Speaker 1: taking a couple days in advance. It's not so close
Speaker 1: that you can say we're not sure what the polls say.
Speaker 1: The polls say Clinton. Now it's my job trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how luckily the polls are to be accurate
Speaker 1: or not. And we think because the number of undecided
Speaker 1: voters and number of wing states in play, the disagreement
Speaker 1: in the polls, the risk of an error is higher
Speaker 1: than usual in either direction. Frankly, you know, but look
Speaker 1: Clinton's and even money, you'd be very happy to take Clinton.
Speaker 1: We can start to debate what odds you would need
Speaker 1: to take Trump. And you're saying, this is somebody who
Speaker 1: made his money as an online poker player for a
Speaker 1: couple of years. Yes, so you're always trying to figure
Speaker 1: out wins an advantageous situation. I mean, the difference be
Speaker 1: caen this In two thousand twelves and two twelve, we
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time with the same model um
Speaker 1: saying that people are calling us race a toss up,
Speaker 1: and no, it's not true. Obama has been favored all
Speaker 1: year long in polls of key swing states. Right this
Speaker 1: time around, people are like, are in in disbelief that
Speaker 1: Trump has a shot. But you know, there are maybe
Speaker 1: enough people in the country for Trump to win narrowly.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're talking about, right, We're talking about
Speaker 1: a narrow Clinton win, a big Clinton win, or just
Speaker 1: maybe a narrow, narrow Trump win UM involving probably him
Speaker 1: overperforming in the Midwest, maybe even losing the popular vote nationwide. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, Clinton is doing really well in California
Speaker 1: and Texas, for example, relative to Obama, not two states
Speaker 1: that are helpful with the electoral vote very much. If
Speaker 1: you gain a bunch of votes in California went by
Speaker 1: thirty instead of twenty, well that boosts your popular vote
Speaker 1: marchin by about a point nationally, but doesn't help you
Speaker 1: in the electoral college at all. And any other states
Speaker 1: that we should be paying particularly close attention to that
Speaker 1: you think will be meaningful on election night, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are some fun ones. So Utah is a state
Speaker 1: where you have a third party candidate, Evan McMullan, who's
Speaker 1: popular with the Mormon community there, which is about two
Speaker 1: thirds of the electorate UM, and so he's giving Trump
Speaker 1: a race. UM. You know, Arizona is a state where
Speaker 1: if Clinton is having a pretty good night, UM, that
Speaker 1: could be a benchmark for that becomes a really good
Speaker 1: night for her and becomes something people will think of
Speaker 1: as a landslide mandate hype outcome that, along with North
Speaker 1: Carolina are the two states Obama lost in two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve which she is most likely to flip. Um. Conversely,
Speaker 1: I mean you can have states go in either directions.
Speaker 1: So Trump is probably a favorite in Iowa, for example. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you could have Iowa go red, Arizona go blue,
Speaker 1: Texas not go blue, but come closer, right, and Utah
Speaker 1: probably not go blue, but maybe go whatever color. And
Speaker 1: McMillan is purple in our chart. Um. And so that
Speaker 1: would be an indication of of how the electorate has
Speaker 1: begun to change. We had a very similar map two thousand,
Speaker 1: two thousand, eight twelve. This year you begin to see
Speaker 1: some new threads come into play. It won't all resolve
Speaker 1: itself this year. Um. But maybe we are talking about
Speaker 1: the four Corners states in the future, where Arizona and
Speaker 1: Utah are more competitive. Um. And maybe we're talking about
Speaker 1: how Iowa is, like Missouri, a formerly swing state that's
Speaker 1: now our red state, for example. And aren't we really
Speaker 1: talking about the decline of democratics part among the white
Speaker 1: working class. It already happened in West Virginia, it's happening
Speaker 1: now in Iowa and Ohio. But the rise of Democratic
Speaker 1: support among the professional, college educated class in places like
Speaker 1: Arizona and North Carolina, and you see migration patterns. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Clinton is not going to get UM to
Speaker 1: a winning margin in Georgia this year. It could be close, um,
Speaker 1: But with four more years of tech sector growth in
Speaker 1: the Atlanta area and growth of the African American population
Speaker 1: there and college students, then Georgia could go the way
Speaker 1: of of North Carolina, for example, and the immigration to
Speaker 1: cities right and um. But again this doesn't play purely
Speaker 1: into Democrats hands that it does tend to even out
Speaker 1: and yeah, you're gonna see um maybe the access of
Speaker 1: competition shift from the Midwest, where the Midwest will go
Speaker 1: increasingly read um, to the south, both the Southwest and
Speaker 1: the Southeast. Well. I think the fascinating thing to cover
Speaker 1: and for you obviously need to pay attention to, is
Speaker 1: the future of the Republican Party. I can't help but
Speaker 1: think that it's going to turn into kind of a
Speaker 1: two class, two party system, with more educated elites trending
Speaker 1: towards the Democratic Party and less educated people becoming Republicans.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair assessment, you guys? I mean clearly
Speaker 1: these things have the opportunity to be self reinforcing. Um,
Speaker 1: where the people who were fed up with Reblican Party
Speaker 1: this year might not come back anytime soon. Especially it
Speaker 1: seems like more of a Trumpian party, and if there's
Speaker 1: a Trumpian plurality or majority than even without Trump, then
Speaker 1: it can still control many candidates destiny. I mean, one
Speaker 1: thing we definitely learned is that the reason that much
Speaker 1: of a market for Marco Rubio type of conservatism where
Speaker 1: it's kind of um well presented but ultimately pretty conservative
Speaker 1: and kind of Reagan like Reagan reinvented, right, because the
Speaker 1: market for that you to be among voters in the suburbs,
Speaker 1: upper middle class usually, and that group has gone more
Speaker 1: and more democratic. So that's been draining away the potential
Speaker 1: number of votes that Republicans might might win. So what
Speaker 1: brand of Republicanism works, well, we don't know. I mean, Trump,
Speaker 1: who I think wasn't really a Republican that kind of
Speaker 1: reinvented the party in his image, beat out sixteen other
Speaker 1: versions of Republicanism. The one complicating thing. Um, So we
Speaker 1: don't don't get too fixated on this neat narrative about
Speaker 1: Trump projecting the party is that you did have UM,
Speaker 1: very very few upsets in Republican Senate and gubinatorial primaries.
Speaker 1: The establishment one plenty of those, and the GOP has
Speaker 1: a fairly strong set of candidates, which may mitigate their
Speaker 1: losses UM in the Senate for example. UM, So maybe
Speaker 1: there's some hope that Trump was truly one of a
Speaker 1: kind and that he'll go away quietly. UM, because in
Speaker 1: some ways it's if in some ways if Trump wins UM,
Speaker 1: unless he has a great first term, and some ways
Speaker 1: of Trump wins, it's more problematic for the GOP. And
Speaker 1: I know we have to go soon ate, but but
Speaker 1: briefly before we do, what's your assessment on House and
Speaker 1: Senate control at this point? So the Senate is incredible,
Speaker 1: and that we have UM six races that are really
Speaker 1: as close to toss ups as you can get. UM.
Speaker 1: It looks like Democrats might have a slight edge in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: but New Hampshire, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, UM are
Speaker 1: very close. And we don't say things are too close
Speaker 1: to call just to stay out of trouble. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you can really find lots of polls lining
Speaker 1: up on either side of those races. But the history
Speaker 1: of this is that the key Senate races tend to
Speaker 1: break one way or the other depending on the presidential
Speaker 1: as well, and it looked like they were breaking toward Democrats.
Speaker 1: And now one week later, I mean, we have the
Speaker 1: creds as a Monday as about a six chance to
Speaker 1: take the centup. But that was declining a little bit
Speaker 1: um as we began to see some Republicans come home,
Speaker 1: I think. And finally, what about Gary Johnson and Jill Stein?
Speaker 1: Are they just non factors? I mean they do even
Speaker 1: though their percentages have declined, Gary Johnson's in particular since
Speaker 1: the all time high at one p m, that's still
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think it's siphoning votes away from
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton or from Donald Trump? And is it enough
Speaker 1: to make a difference in the outcome? I mean, what
Speaker 1: you've seen is that when the candidates have surged and
Speaker 1: have good moments, right Clinton after the debates or her convention,
Speaker 1: Um Trump more recently, Um, they begun to pull voters
Speaker 1: away from the third party candidate, and once those voters
Speaker 1: go to a major party candidate, they don't go back
Speaker 1: because they don't want to wind up wasting their vote UM,
Speaker 1: and so that vote for Johnson's decline from about ten
Speaker 1: percent to five percent, stying from about four percent to
Speaker 1: one or two percent UM. There's not much that much
Speaker 1: low they would go. But but sure, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you have Johnson with five percent of the vote UM
Speaker 1: and the margin in Pennsylvania's five points, then those are
Speaker 1: voters who potentially could make a difference at the end.
Speaker 1: Is there any statistical analysis that would tell us if
Speaker 1: you're most likely scenario happens that Clinton wynn but a
Speaker 1: Republican House, maybe a Democratic Senate, maybe a Republican Senate,
Speaker 1: whether we'll just get more gridlock or that something different
Speaker 1: will actually occur. I mean, gridlock seems like a very
Speaker 1: safe bet um in part because I don't think you're
Speaker 1: going to have um a Democratic house. UM. I think
Speaker 1: Clinton would have had need to have had a win
Speaker 1: at her back in the last week of the campaign
Speaker 1: instead of burning into the wind a little bit. If
Speaker 1: you have Trump, you're gonna have UM, not the traditional
Speaker 1: uh necessarily well trained bureaucrats and cabinet and everything else.
Speaker 1: I mean, so you know, this is why I say
Speaker 1: eight um. And again, you would much rather win the
Speaker 1: presidency than lose it. But whoever wins the presidency is
Speaker 1: going to probably face a difficult first two years and
Speaker 1: difficult mid term in Nate Silver, Nate, thank you, Thank you, Katie,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Brian too, thank you. So we want to
Speaker 1: thank as always johnnah Palmer for producing the show and
Speaker 1: Jared O'Connell for engineering and mixing it. Thanks to Mark
Speaker 1: Phillips for our fantastic theme music. We'll be back next
Speaker 1: week with a very special election episode, really a post
Speaker 1: election episode, and we want to hear from you once
Speaker 1: it's over. What will you be doing to Phillip all
Speaker 1: the time you've spent obsessively following this election. Leave us
Speaker 1: a message. Brian will be manning the phones. I'm kidding
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