Speaker 1: The armstrong and getting so Democrats by nature a nervous
Speaker 1: they they're so traumatized by two thousand and sixteen. They
Speaker 1: have to get over it, all right, And I get
Speaker 1: this all the time. I'll change. Please don't say that,
Speaker 1: because if people think we're gonna win and not to
Speaker 1: combine Vook, that's the idiotic We're going to win. What
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? Biden campaign has actually
Speaker 1: been pretty good. He gets pretty good in the debates,
Speaker 1: and of course he's gonna make gas between nine election
Speaker 1: day and it just sends the the Democratic Party into
Speaker 1: some kind of state of depression. Get over it, tough enough, people,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's just the truth. Deal with a Democrats.
Speaker 1: You're gonna worry. James Carville saying, look, we're gonna win. Well,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of polls out there that are
Speaker 1: not favorable to Donald Trump right now. And I thought
Speaker 1: we'd talked to somebody who knows a lot about being
Speaker 1: involved in presidential campaigns. And you know where we are now.
Speaker 1: We haven't talked about about this sort of stuff because god,
Speaker 1: we're four months out and well and and well, I
Speaker 1: tell you what, let's bring long he in and and
Speaker 1: include him in the conversation lot and he j Chen
Speaker 1: David and Diane Stephie fellow in American Public Policy Studies
Speaker 1: at the Hoover Institution. Uh joins us. Now on here,
Speaker 1: how are you, sir? It's good to be with you
Speaker 1: this morning. Think I got your title right? I forget
Speaker 1: to put on my glasses, so I'm squinting like a fiend.
Speaker 1: And you and you you have been involved in a
Speaker 1: couple of big time, major presidential campaigns, correct, four of them,
Speaker 1: including as a as a senior aide to romney in
Speaker 1: and a senior aide to Marco Rubio. And you're and
Speaker 1: you're a student of history and teach all this stuff.
Speaker 1: So um, good person to ask some of these questions. One,
Speaker 1: do numbers move very dramatically from this point to election day?
Speaker 1: I mean is that common they? You know? Can can
Speaker 1: you make up ground? Did they tend to say you're
Speaker 1: eight points down in a pivotal swing? Stated? Sure? Did
Speaker 1: do numbers like that change in the last four months?
Speaker 1: Does that happen regularly? Yeah? The numbers definitely will bounce
Speaker 1: all over the place. Trends will change based on events.
Speaker 1: You know, if you look at the campaign as an example,
Speaker 1: you had you had a race that was not close
Speaker 1: for a large part of the of the summer months
Speaker 1: and then closed quite rapidly after the first presidential debate,
Speaker 1: which was in early October in Denver. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: the numbers can absolutely change. The margins are are big now,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. I think Joe Biden has a
Speaker 1: very healthy lead nationally. Some of the swing state polling,
Speaker 1: which has been notoriously inaccurate in the past, the sort
Speaker 1: of throw weight of that swing state polling suggest that
Speaker 1: Trump is also in trouble. So, I mean, those numbers
Speaker 1: I think reflect where we are today, but they are
Speaker 1: not necessarily a reflection of where the race will be
Speaker 1: in September or October. Well, not necessarily. But has anybody
Speaker 1: ever come back in one who is this far down
Speaker 1: four months out? That's a good question. So um, I
Speaker 1: believe Buchanan was down thirteen points Jack and fairly fairly
Speaker 1: modern phenomenon. But I just don't remember anybody being this
Speaker 1: far down and coming back and winning. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are certainly people who held onto leads, obviously, but
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know about coming back, And I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to rack in my brain thinking about people
Speaker 1: that have come back to win. Uh, and and it's
Speaker 1: been rare. Clinton wasn't doing particularly well um against George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 1: and then things kind of turned around for him late
Speaker 1: in the race. So that might be one race to
Speaker 1: look at where I would say Clinton was probably down
Speaker 1: at this point came back to winning and not down
Speaker 1: by a small number either. So um. You know, part
Speaker 1: of a challenge for for Donald Trump as I see
Speaker 1: it now, is that there's two things. One is the
Speaker 1: self sort of self made errors I think has finally
Speaker 1: begun to accumulate. I think people are beginning to see that,
Speaker 1: and the set things they I would just saying there's
Speaker 1: some you know, recent news about this is that it's
Speaker 1: not really clear what his second term agenda will look like.
Speaker 1: And I think he and his campaign probably need to
Speaker 1: get out there and to find that a little better.
Speaker 1: Uh if if, if he wants to close this gap, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, even Trump fans who are friends, relatives of
Speaker 1: mine and ours will admit to some Trump fatigue, um,
Speaker 1: and he absolutely needs to balance that with a powerful
Speaker 1: as he would probably put it, a positive message for
Speaker 1: the second term. So listen, Lon he j J And
Speaker 1: I am, I'm a sport that did you? Are you
Speaker 1: a sports fan at all? Have we ever talked about this? Yes? Yes, right, okay,
Speaker 1: I am, I'm I'm I'm a big sports fan. What's
Speaker 1: your favorite sport? I would say it's baseball? Okay, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a Dodger fan. Well, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we can't be friends anymore. Sorry, Uh no, I can't.
Speaker 1: Um a lot of fabulous Dodger fans listening to the show,
Speaker 1: and we're as willing to pander to you as dandy.
Speaker 1: But so if if you took a snapshot of where
Speaker 1: we are right now in terms of the Trump campaign
Speaker 1: and the numbers we've been discussing, is he down two
Speaker 1: runs in the fourth inning or how would you how
Speaker 1: would you put? How does he stand? How nervous should
Speaker 1: Trump fans be? I think they should be nervous, but
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be overwhelmingly so, so I would say he's down,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd say five or six runs in the
Speaker 1: second inning. That's how I would That's that. That's how
Speaker 1: it put. Interesting, it's a pretty it's a pretty big lead,
Speaker 1: but it's so early, okay, that is, and he's a
Speaker 1: team that's won a lot, so right, right, I mean
Speaker 1: you know, if so and all the players on the
Speaker 1: other team are eighty years old, there, right, they all
Speaker 1: have to they both torn their A C. L s
Speaker 1: or at Tommy john Surgs Racing. Look, here's here's here's
Speaker 1: how I would think about it if I were looking
Speaker 1: at these polls. And I'm sure you know you've got
Speaker 1: a very sophisticated listener base. So maybe I'm saying something
Speaker 1: people already know, but you do not need to worry
Speaker 1: so much about the national polls. The real worrisome numbers
Speaker 1: that we're seeing if you're the Trump campaign or a
Speaker 1: Trump supporter, are in the state five state And if
Speaker 1: he's losing states like Arizona and Florida and North Carolina
Speaker 1: that he won in twenty sixteen with decently healthy margins,
Speaker 1: you've got to be concerned when you see a number like,
Speaker 1: you know, down seven or eight in Arizona, down seven
Speaker 1: or eight in Florida. We're looking at him down to
Speaker 1: eleven in Wisconsin, down to eleven in Wisconsin, down ten
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania. Though, that's tough, and I think the numbers
Speaker 1: even bigger in Michigan. I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 1: we if you're the Trump campaign, you really do need
Speaker 1: to focus on Arizona and Florida and North Carolina right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that you're down in those states
Speaker 1: is a is a major trouble sign. Uh. The other states,
Speaker 1: I mean Michigan, Wisconsin, those those polls never really had
Speaker 1: him all that close. And I think a few poles
Speaker 1: at the very in may have had him closing in Michigan,
Speaker 1: but the mission Michigan within polling, Pennsylvania polling never really
Speaker 1: was all that friendly to Donald Trump at sixteen anyway.
Speaker 1: So so that's why I say, if you look at
Speaker 1: the two thousand twenty state by state polling, it really
Speaker 1: is those states in the in the seven of the
Speaker 1: South that are worrisome for Ms. Trump. Lana he Chan
Speaker 1: is online, Hey, Lana he quickly maybe a minute on this,
Speaker 1: but I'm looking at some COVID nineteen statistics. Um, when
Speaker 1: when the book is written, perhaps by you, about the
Speaker 1: politics of COVID nineteen, what's the headline, what's that title?
Speaker 1: What what approach would you take? How do you see
Speaker 1: this whole thing? Because there's been such a big political uh,
Speaker 1: you know, part of part of this that is political,
Speaker 1: I should say, I would call the book the Polarized Pandemic,
Speaker 1: and and you sort of hit on the on the
Speaker 1: really big dynamic here, which is fascinating is the degree
Speaker 1: to which we as a society have been polarized over
Speaker 1: everything when it comes to this pandemic. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: literally almost no question that is not politically polarized. Where
Speaker 1: did the pandemic come from? What should we call it?
Speaker 1: Should people wear masks? How should society respond to it?
Speaker 1: Who is responsible for the spike in cases? Why is
Speaker 1: there a spike in cases? All of these questions are
Speaker 1: politically tinged, politically motivated. People's answers will differ based on
Speaker 1: how they see their their politics and who they like
Speaker 1: in political life and who they don't like. And that
Speaker 1: to me is staggering, because if you look at past pandemics,
Speaker 1: not just here in the US, but around the world,
Speaker 1: you will find, i'd submit, a much lower degree of
Speaker 1: political polarization. And in fact, if you look at the
Speaker 1: response that other countries have had, it has not been
Speaker 1: driven as much by politics, and so our situation here
Speaker 1: around COVID nineteen this will be a story people will
Speaker 1: write for generations to come how polarized we've become around
Speaker 1: this pandemic. Well, that sounds like a great quickie book.
Speaker 1: I proposed the following, you do the work, I put
Speaker 1: my name on it, and and we put it on
Speaker 1: the market. I want you to think about that. Since
Speaker 1: you're offer great, offer a loan. He's a fellow in
Speaker 1: the American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and
Speaker 1: it's always great to talk. Thanks Lonnie Armstrong and Getty