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Speaker 1: It feels like we're launching from one election to the

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Speaker 1: next at the moment. The Northern Territory election of course

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Speaker 1: in August, the Queensland election just a couple of weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: and well, Americans are heading to the polls tomorrow. I

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Speaker 1: believe it's tomorrow Australian time to determine if Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: or Carmela Harris is going to become the President of

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Speaker 1: the United States. Now joining me on the line from

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Speaker 1: on the ground update. He's a former nine News Darwin reporter,

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Speaker 1: a territory favorite, one of our great exports, i'd say,

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Speaker 1: Channel nine political editor Charles Croucher.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Crouch, very very kind you, Katie.

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Speaker 1: We miss Jamaish. How's it going traveling the world?

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Speaker 2: I miss the NT. It's good. It's good. We're in Washington,

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Speaker 2: DC at the moment, and remarkably it's mild and quite

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Speaker 2: warm so and by war, I mean like, you know,

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Speaker 2: fifteen degrees.

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Speaker 1: Nice compared to I think we're heading for about thirty

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Speaker 1: six today out here at Berry Springs for the crocodile racers.

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Speaker 1: It's going to be a warm one for us. Now.

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Speaker 1: It's been a busy there is no doubt about that,

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Speaker 1: and you're on the ground now in America, as you've

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Speaker 1: just said, for the US election. How is it all

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Speaker 1: sort of tracking at this point in time.

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Speaker 2: It's funny. I mean, it seems a long way away.

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Speaker 2: But the combination, the through line from what you mentioned,

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Speaker 2: you know that the election and the territory into the

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Speaker 2: Queensland election and then the election here is that it's

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Speaker 2: a really bad time to be an incumbent government now.

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Speaker 2: A lot of that has to do with inflation. You know,

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Speaker 2: people are looking for someone to blame for the fact

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Speaker 2: that everything is going up in prices, and the most

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Speaker 2: obvious person to blame is the government. And that's what

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Speaker 2: this election is so interesting, because Joe Biden is not

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Speaker 2: on the ballot and it took a long time to

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Speaker 2: get there. But what do you have is effectively a

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Speaker 2: sitting vice president and a former president, both running to

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Speaker 2: be outsiders, almost both running to be the change candidates.

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Speaker 2: And to their immense credit and somewhat to a surprise,

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Speaker 2: the Harris's team and Kame Harris's team has done a

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Speaker 2: pretty good job of framing her as somehow the candidate

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Speaker 2: have changed, despite the fact that she's been in the

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Speaker 2: Oval office with Joe Biden for all the decisions that

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Speaker 2: have put America in the situation that's in right now.

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Speaker 2: So what we have here in the States is this

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Speaker 2: remarkably close election, very difficult to pick. And either way

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Speaker 2: tomorrow you get history. You know, you get the first

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Speaker 2: female president, which is no small feat. I think eight

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Speaker 2: years ago with Hillary it was the entire campaign. Almost

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Speaker 2: this time, Paris has been playing that down. Or you

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Speaker 2: get the return of Donald Trump, someone who had power

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Speaker 2: lost power. Don't forget. He is out on bail right now,

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Speaker 2: is facing a sentencing in four weeks time, and yet

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Speaker 2: is probably the favorite, I think the books would say

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Speaker 2: is the favorite to return to the White House. Is

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Speaker 2: an extraordinary campaign. There's been multiple assassination attempts, multiple candidates,

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Speaker 2: multiple charges. You know, any one of those those things

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Speaker 2: individually would make for a very surprising election. We've got

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Speaker 2: all the mixed in together, and that's what sort of

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Speaker 2: awaits the world tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and Charles, what's the feeling, you know, like, how

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Speaker 1: are people sort of reacting over there? Because it seems

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Speaker 1: to me from a real outsider's perspective, you know, watching

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Speaker 1: from Australia, it's been quite nasty in terms of some

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Speaker 1: of the comments being made.

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Speaker 2: It's a long way from where we've been in the past.

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Speaker 2: In terms of that collegial I think that that John

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Speaker 2: McCain and Brack Obama, which is only two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 2: how gentle that campaign was. In hindsight, this one has

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Speaker 2: been nasty. Both people have a lot to lose. You

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump is steering at the barrel of potentially going

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Speaker 2: to prison if he loses this election, so he's got

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Speaker 2: gloves off. He is not as disciplined as he's been

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Speaker 2: in the past, and he's sort of wandering all over

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Speaker 2: the place. The big other battle, which is being framed

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Speaker 2: by the campaign themselves, is this idea of men versus women.

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Speaker 2: Come or. Harris has really honed her message to not

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Speaker 2: just young women because abortion rights it's a huge issue

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Speaker 2: here in the state since the Supreme Court overturned the

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Speaker 2: right to get an abortion. But Donald Trump has sort

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Speaker 2: of tacked the other way, and he has with the

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Speaker 2: help of Amon Musk and this series Jdvans He's running mate,

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Speaker 2: and this series of sort of podcasts, and the focus

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Speaker 2: they've gone is trying to lure young men to come

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Speaker 2: out and vote as well. The Harr's campaign courting young women,

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Speaker 2: the Trump campaign courting young men. It's almost become like

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Speaker 2: who do you trust if you're trying to predict this,

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Speaker 2: who is more reliable to get out and vote? The

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Speaker 2: young women or young men? Now, I would say ninety

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Speaker 2: five percent of the time, young women are much more

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Speaker 2: reliable to do anything over young men.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, mate, you didn't know me when I

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Speaker 1: was nineteen.

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Speaker 2: That's true. That's a good point. You knew me. Look,

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Speaker 2: particularly when you know you don't have to vote. So

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Speaker 2: there are three possible results here, right, it's Trump, it's Harris,

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Speaker 2: or it's the couch and you just stay out. And

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Speaker 2: I think ultimately it's whoever shows out will be the

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Speaker 2: big winner of tomorrow. And you know, with all the polls,

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Speaker 2: all the pannetry, all the data, it's still too close

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Speaker 2: to court.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, look, it's going to be so fascinating. I understand

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Speaker 1: that there's been huge numbers of people turn out to

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Speaker 1: vote early as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's something that the Americans haven't always embraced

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Speaker 2: as well the Australians has. And you know, four years

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Speaker 2: ago Donald Trump was telling his supporters not too vote early.

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Speaker 2: This was the COVID election. He didn't trust the early voting,

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Speaker 2: didn't trust the postal voting, said you must show up

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Speaker 2: on the day. Now, I think you realize that's not

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Speaker 2: a good strategy because there are people that say, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I've got them the day, and then the day comes around,

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Speaker 2: it's a Tuesday, and they've got other things on. They

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Speaker 2: don't vote. Right now, things are close, you want everyone

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Speaker 2: to vote, so really good sign that people are voting

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Speaker 2: in great numbers. Look, you know this whole year you

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Speaker 2: mentioned Queensland, the territory. There's been elections all over the world,

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Speaker 2: from India to the UK, Europe, Germany, in France, really

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Speaker 2: important elections taking place. And if America has a funking

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Speaker 2: turnout tomorrow, a peaceful transition of power whoever it goes

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Speaker 2: to the clean count, it would go a long way

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Speaker 2: to sort of easing the nerves of democracies which are

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Speaker 2: kind of on the backwards step at the moment. So

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Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot at stake in the next

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Speaker 2: twenty four hours plus. Of course, you know the relationship

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Speaker 2: between Australia and the US. They're going to be tariff

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Speaker 2: in place. What does it mean to the territory is

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Speaker 2: a defense base. You know, some of our exports, those

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Speaker 2: critical minerals and gases for flowing through American companies. You know,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot going to learn a lot about the

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Speaker 2: world in the next twenty four hours, and we all

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Speaker 2: have sort of hold our breath and watch.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're spot on, Charles, When do you reckon? We're

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Speaker 1: going to start to know the outcome.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So look, we're on from at ten o'clock tomorrow

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Speaker 2: on nine. Of course we'll be on throughout the day.

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Speaker 2: It'd be great to see I reckon. We'll get a

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Speaker 2: pretty good idea mid afternoon. There's the American system is

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Speaker 2: horrifically complex, and there's whole university lectures on why it's

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Speaker 2: so difficult, but it is. There's seven swing states. We're

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Speaker 2: going to get an idea of a few of those

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Speaker 2: swing states that will ultimately decide mid afternoon. If they're split,

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Speaker 2: then we go to sort of later afternoon, probably around

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Speaker 2: news time in darn which is six. If you still

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Speaker 2: don't have an idea, then it could be could be Thursday,

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Speaker 2: could be Friday. Last time it took till Sunday morning,

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Speaker 2: could be longer with recount from the like, And of

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Speaker 2: course anytime there's doubt, that doubt gets filled with conspiracies

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Speaker 2: and complaints and legal challenges and protests and get it

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Speaker 2: gets real hairy over here. So yeah, just wait and see.

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Speaker 2: You know. Traditionally in past elections you'll know by newstime,

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Speaker 2: but who knows tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, look after yourself. It sounds like you're going

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Speaker 1: to be very, very busy in the coming day. Charles Croutcher.

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Speaker 1: We really appreciate you taking the time to have a

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Speaker 1: chat to us this morning.

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Speaker 2: My friend, you know, anytime, and good luck with the

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Speaker 2: crop races up there, it'd be great.

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Speaker 1: Mage. Who do you want to put some money on

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Speaker 1: Dan's tiny croc Kroc in a box? Kim krok Dashian?

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Speaker 1: What a croc or Crockett Rockish?

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Speaker 2: What do you reckon the fact the fact I'm here.

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Speaker 1: Charles Crutcher, good to speak with you. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: very much for having a chat this morning.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Katie, anytime.

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Speaker 1: Thank you,