BOMBSHELL POLL: NYT/Siena Finds a Stunning Shift in Red America

Hey, everyone, I'm Catherine Randpell, economics editor here at The Bullwork, joined by my friend and colleague, Woke Bill Crystal, to talk all about the gigantic New York Times Santa poll that came out this bombshell poll. For those listening, the New York Times Santa poll is one of the most accurate and highly respected polls in this business. So we got some really bombshell information about the potential blue wave or blue tsunami that is coming. I just didn't want to do a brief plug for receipts. That's my new podcast. You can get it on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts, the most recent episode was with our other colleague, JVL, a great episode in which you will learn which era of German history, the Trump administration actually resemble. So a little tidbit for you there, but you can get it again wherever you listen to your podcasts. Bill, let's talk about this new poll, this crazy new poll. The time says Democrats lead among likely voters in the Senate races in Texas and Alaska, two states that consistently vote Republican, the polls found, they have an edge in Ohio, which has been tilting right word for years. Republicans have a slim edge in Iowa and Democrats are neck and neck with Republicans in Kansas, which has not voted for a Democratic Senator since 1932. Bill, what are your biggest takeaways from this new data we got? - It's a wave and this is what waves look like and I've been through a couple of them and everyone's like, whoa, that state, they told me that state was reliable and then, or that district and the whole point of a wave is it doesn't replicate a quote normal election whether or not here or presidential one. Basically for the Democrats to win the Senate, everyone thought they might pick up a seat or two, but to get to 51 or 52, they basically need three of the four that were considered reach states, but not crazy, Texas, Ohio, Alaska, and Iowa. Alaska and Texas are plus six, Ohio plus three, Iowa minus one, so basically even. And then Kansas, which I thought for a long time actually would be as competitive as Iowa's even. Probably if Democrats win three of those, they win the Senate. Now, to be clear, you know, this March of error, people shouldn't overdo it. I've seen some commentary, you see this all the time too. And online, oh my god, can you believe Maine's minus two in the Southern states plus three? I mean, this is why there is a March of error. I mean, you really can't over, you know, do these things. That's why you should look at averages of polls and so forth and trends among polls. But the main thing to say is, if this were just some outlier, you'd think, I don't know, maybe they'd just off in their sampling or they're waiting. But we have a huge number of national polls that are consistent with this. The generic's been opening up. Could it be acquisition size plus 12 this week? And that's the respected polls too. And certainly Trump's approval, which is the key thing in an off-year election. I mean, people that haven't really internalized, I think, quite as much as they might, what a drop from, let's say, 50%, which is basically election day of 24, a two 37% or so. That's a very big drop. Think about it for a minute, right? 13% of 50, what's your mess? But that's more than a quarter of the voters of his voters deserting him. Now, not all those voters are going to vote democratic, obviously. Some will stick with the Republican member of Congress or Senator because they still like the Republican Party better. Some will go, we'll switch, check Trump. Some will stay home. If you're working with a 13% drop, the Democrats can pick up 7, 8, 10% of that drop. You get numbers like this. >> Obviously, Donald Trump major driver in all of this. I would argue that candidate quality matters. At least in some of these races, when we look at the polling as well, like Texas, right? Texas, we never thought would go blue. At least there have been a few times when the Democrats in Texas got their hopes up and then had them dashed with Beto and others. And so I think that the expectations had been relatively low that that could happen. And yet, here we have in this New York Times, Santa Paul, Tallerico, was at 51%. Paxton is at 45%. There was reporting from the times, I believe, that Republicans are pulling their money out of North Carolina to give it to elsewhere, to give it to places like Kansas as well. Republicans are having to double down and safeguard places that they could have once taken for granted. In Texas, like I mentioned, I think candidate quality is a big issue here, right? You have Ken Paxton, who is notoriously corrupt, who was impeached by Republicans in his state, whose wife divorced him last year for biblical reasons. He's still in the running, but certainly that is not helping him in addition to the Trump albatross that is around his neck and basically the entire ticket around the country. - Democrats have been so, had their hopes crushed so many times, especially in Texas, but it's true in other states too, everyone loved Beto in 2018 and he lost by a couple of points to an advocate or to Ted Cruz. But if you think about it for a minute, Trump is probably 10 points less popular in Texas than he was in 2018. Well, he's only as naturally, and I suspect in Texas, he was above 50 in 2018. In fact, I think I believe he was in the X-apoles on election day. And now I bet he's below 50. And as you say, Paxton's a worse candidate than Ted Cruz, and Talarika is probably a better candidate than Beto and Beto is a talented guy, but Talarika probably has a slightly bigger appeal to independent and some non-Trumpy Republicans. Democrats have to get over their historic disappointment. Iowa was like a nightmare because of 2024, the cells are found, the Harris was going to be Trump in Iowa and then two days later Trump crushed her. So I was like, my God, so people probably got a little too fatalistic about some of these states. And they're two sort of scenarios. One, this is what three, this is kind of right. This is where we're going to end up. That's quite possible, the month out. The numbers don't change that much, usually in the last month, absence of a huge event. You could have a bit of a reversion to the mean. That's what Republicans are asking for, hoping for very much, which would be to say, some of the lot of Republicans come home. They're unhappy with Trump, but truth. They see how radical the Democrats are. You know, girl's sports, you can imagine all the advertising that's coming up in these states. The defections, some of them come home. Some of them say they can't put for a Democrat, maybe they'll just stay home. And that number starts to sink and the Republicans eke out a victory that's happened at times. Or the opposite. The wave continues. The reason it's called the wave is typically they get, it gets bigger as the election season goes on. I've noticed this a couple of times that this is kind of a bear market rally. If I can use the term, you know very well. I mean, which is like there's a little fake rally for the other party and that it kind of subsides. As it even been that this time, it's really kind of unusual. I mean, we've seen no Republican recovery over months now, right? I mean, not always falling. It's sometimes like stable for a week or two or three. But and that tells me that this is sunk in pretty deep. There's a lot of American voters who want unhappy with Trump. And if they vote this year, we'll vote to check Trump. I will say, I was in Dallas quite recently. I think it was last week. And I had dinner with a bunch of Democratic fundraiser bigwig types. And I asked their thoughts on this race. Maybe it's because they've been burned a couple of times. They've had their hopestash because of the beta race among other things. They said, well, they're a little nervous that there might be people who are not answering honestly in these polls. Like everybody knows that Paxton sucks. And maybe they don't even want to tell a pollster that they're going to vote for Paxton because they're going to grit their teeth and just vote for him anyway, because they're Republicans. Comparable to the shy Trump voter issue that we had in 2016. And yet, we even have somebody whom Paxton himself should have lost as a voter who actually instead has come out and endorsed him or at least the ticket. I'm Texas Senator Angela Paxton. People have asked my thoughts about this election and turns out, I have some. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. In a general election, it's not as much about the individual players on the team. It's about getting the whole team across the finish line. Either we hold every Republican seat or we hand the future of Texas to the other team. That's why I'm voting for the Republican ticket on November 3rd. Let's hold the line together. Yeah, that's Paxton's ex-wife right there. I mean, it's a little bit of a hostage video and so when Clinton is watching it, honestly, I personally feel. But on the other hand, it's probably an effect of that. I mean, it's an effect of what I would do if I were in that in their shoes. You can't, I mean, it got her making the core case to the cornering voters in the primary who really don't like Paxton of why they have to suck it up and vote for Paxton or at least suck it up and not vote Democratic and stay home. I think that would be this second best thing, but they really would like some of the vote for Paxton. There's some people who will say, look, if she can suck it up, I can do so. And it's right, we can't let those radical Democrats run everything. One other thing on the poll, which is sort of interesting is a kind of a technical matter, but it's important. The times and numbers, I think are among likely voters, how to post to decide who a likely voter is. You ask people, are you certain or almost certain you're gonna vote? That's one question. They also often asked, did you vote in the last 2024, did you vote in 2022? And then if you get two of the three or three of the three, that's likely or very likely voter, right? I mean, if it's a regular voter who says he or she's gonna vote, they probably really will vote. Having said that, it's that can vary, right? People, and that can cause a lot of difference, especially in a midterm election, where the vote could vary a lot. I looked this up before we came out. So in 2014, about 37% of eligible voters, that's the whole universe of people above 18, who are not barred for voting for some reason, vote at 37%. That was what it's been for two or three decades. In 2018, that went to 50%. go from 37 to 50% of a pool changes the whole dynamic, right? I mean, if that, and that 13% is not 6.5% Democrats and 6.5% Republicans, right? It's, I don't know, 10% Democrats and 3% Republicans showing up. 2022 is 46%. So pretty high, but a little draw. I don't know. I kind of feel like this will be a high turnout midterm, and I kind of feel like the high turnout will come from disproportionately from Democrats. And if you think about those numbers, we were just looking at state level, a disproportionate turnout of 3, 4, 5% makes a huge difference, right? So this, but, but the likely voter thing, little hard to know, if maybe you turned out in 24, was you wanted to vote for Trump, and you say you're going to vote, so you're a likely voter, are you really a likely voter? But it's, it's just a notoriously, it's, it can go, you can get it off by a couple of points. >> Yeah. The other thing that I'm wondering about that may affect this race, in addition to Donald Trump in his favorability, or lack thereof, and Ken Paxton is also the salsa McGueden that may be coming. News organizations around Texas have been reporting that it may be the case that text message restaurants are no longer serve free chips in salsa when you arrive, like as a matter of course, because the tomato tariffs that Trump has put in place have driven up the cost of tomatoes so much. So, and not just the tariffs, you also have a drought that's occurred in the United, in parts of the United States. So those things together have been raising the cost of salsa and making it somewhat prohibitively expensive for restaurants to continue giving out for free. The San Antonio Business Journal reported that some restaurants in San Antonio spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on salsa ingredients, which may not be sustainable. They quote the president of the Texas International Protos Association is saying, you have restaurants that are simply saying, look, I can't afford to put salsa on the tables anymore. What are consumers going to do? Where are consumers going to find this relief? So I have no idea if this is going to move the needle, but this administration was supposed to be at the very least providing bread and circuses if they were not going to be respecting civil rights, right? Like, sure, we're going to kidnap people off of the streets, we're going to potentially have these masked vigilantes going around and shooting American citizens, but at least you'll be entertained, at least your bellies will be full. And instead, we do not have taco trucks on every corner. We have potentially Tex-Mex restaurants and Mexican restaurants withdrawing their salsa from the table. >> That's interesting, and I was in Iowa two weeks ago, I guess, and I was struck there too. The tariffs really have, I mean, that's what I've been sort of focused on. I have a chance of some of the, even the great plain states that Nebraska and so forth. I mean, the tariffs really hit the farmers, and as you know, very well, I mean, the farm economy is a lot bigger than the actual human beings who are, you know, own farms or are working on farms, right? And this is an upper middle class crowd, I would say, coming to my lecture and my talk, and in Iowa City, and it's slightly liberal because it's a university town, but a lot of business types. So I would think would normally be inclined to the public. And I felt like there was a real sense of his portrayals. I mean, you know, they started this terror thing without thinking it through the charity's retaliated on soybeans, which is very big out there. Then he started a war where that thing can get through. In both cases is his own, you've stressed this in receipts a couple of times. He can't really spread the blame around, right? These are Trump's tariffs and Trump's war. And I was struck that that was very much on people's minds, whatever it's worth in Iowa. And that could be true. And since these are all red states that are in play, these are people who, by definition, some many even voted for Trump in 2024. So why are they deserting? And I tend to agree with you. I wish maybe it were some more of the civil rights type issues and the destruction of the international order. But actually, I do think the war plus the terrorist was a real one, two punch. Don't you think? I feel like either one he might have been able to sort of get away with it, but it was sort of just two instances of him unilaterally doing something that's just not worked out. And both of those things have driven up prices. So there are plenty of people who didn't want war for other reasons, right? For moral reasons or they for ideological reasons, they think that we should be staying out of other countries' businesses or whatever. And Donald Trump had promised that he would be the president of peace and keep us out of wars. And so that in and of itself, obviously, was a betrayal of some of the voters who really cared about that who wanted more isolationism. Then when you take into account where he began this war and then its economic consequences, I think that that has really upset the Apple card. Trump said he was going to make prices go down and instead diesel prices, gas prices, etc. are rising. Trump himself, of course, does not by any of this. Here is what he said was the main problem that was afflicting his party. The only thing we're doing badly at is public relations. In other words, we're doing a phenomenal job. What do you think Bill? You think it's just a PR problem? Yeah. I mean, if people drive down the road and the gas prices are a dollar and a half more than they were when Trump started the war and hired them when he took over, wait, you know, I've never driven a diesel car or a diesel truck or anything like that, moving on these coasts. So I was amazed how people mentioned diesel right away. I guess it's just, you know, it's such a big part, I think of rural economies and stuff. So again, I come back to that other's upper Midwest and great plain states as well as Texas, which has an awful lot of, that's Trump's base, right? I mean, these waves also, what happens is, of course, the swing voters swing and, of course, upper middle class uppers are Dallas and Houston are going to go from 5248, maybe democratic to, you know, 60-40 democratic. What's also going to happen is rural areas in Texas are going to go from 80-20 Trump to 70-30. And that's equally important. I mean, you know, it's not important to congressional, congressional district analysis is a little different, right? Because you still wait if you're 70-30. If it's a statewide election, each vote counts where it was coming from. And so I kind of think that the erosion of Trump's rural support could be end up being pretty important. And again, like some of these states, you would not have guessed Democrats would be holding their own in like Kansas. I mean, Kansas, I think some of that's about candidate quality. Again, it's some of it's about the high cost of diesel and the high cost of everything else and maybe soon the salsa. I don't know how Kansas feel about their free salsa and ships at Mexican restaurants. Another thing that was interesting in this poll was a breakdown of whether voters believed that, or likely voters believed that Democrats or Republicans would handle specific issues better. We can show this graphic, but it's just like a sea of blue. So on healthcare tariffs, cost of living, doing what's best for ordinary people, data centers in all five states, all five red states that are traditionally red states that we've been talking about. Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Texas, Democrats generally do way better. There are a couple places where they're they're break even. The question of being an effective senator, whatever that means, a bit mixed, immigration, Republicans still are squeaking by doing a little bit better. Although you have to imagine that some of the bad PR, as Donald Trump puts it, about their otherwise very good policies, you know, disappearing people off of the streets and deporting otherwise law abiding nannies and landscapers and home health aids and others. I imagine that that's weighing on these numbers somewhat, but even then, Republicans are doing okay. But I do think it's pretty striking that on basically every other issue, Democrats are pulling ahead. Like I mean, healthcare is always, I guess, a strength of Democrats, but cost of living was not doing what's best for ordinary people, I think was not. So it's interesting to see like, again, what feels Trump specific, what feels candidate quality specific and what feels like it's more about the overall vibes on specific issues. You know, hi, O'Groud is a head of, is preferred over Hustead, I think by 11 points on data centers. Now, he's made it a big issue there. Hustead, if I'm not mistaken, when he was lieutenant governor, lobbied and defended strongly, the tax incentives for data centers, when everyone was doing that two or three years ago, it doesn't seem so good. And that I think brown, the Democrats have put up a lot of, put a lot of money behind ads on that. So that's a particularly good issue when you have, you know, your bonus literally a guy who's, you have plenty of video of, video of saying these are the greatest things ever. Maybe it wouldn't be quite as effective in some of these other states, but I wonder if if I were a Democratic operative looking at this poll, I would be thinking if I were in Kansas or Texas or somewhere, I don't know, could we do a little more on data centers because Brown has opened up a big lead on it. And the others, if you look at the other states, it's more plus two plus three plus four, I mean, it's kind of neutralish, you know, so what if she was really explained change or exploded in the last month, what could ask maybe to close? I think AI and data center, AI more, but data centers is kind of a proxy for AI, I think. Well, yeah, there's obviously overlap in why people care about data centers. I think some of it's about like, yes, the existential threat of robots taking over and putting people out of a job and maybe destroying all of humanity. And some of it's about like, I don't want this eye sore that I think is going to drive up electricity rates. And then to some extent, they're like one is referred pain for the other, who knows. Last thing I'll mention is that it'll be interesting. to see in the lead up to the election, how much help Trump and Vance give to these candidates. So we played earlier Trump saying he was going to be out there on the campaign trail and helping all of his candidates who really do not necessarily want him there. For all the reasons we've discussed, JD Vance is going to campaign in Alaska. He is scheduled to host a midterm election campaign rally in Fairbanks, Alaska on Monday. Do you think that Vance going out on the stump is going to be a boon or potential detriment to candidates generally across the spectrum, like around the country, Alaska or otherwise? Trump is certainly, I think it's going to Ohio tonight, Saturday night in Italy, not too far from strength field where our colleague Andrew Egger is going to go to the funeral of Pierre Bell, the young Haitian who committed suicide because of, if I could say, the treatment he received from ICE as part of the mass deportation regime, and then he's going to go to the Trump rally, which is only 25 miles away. So that'll be kind of interesting to see who shows up. I don't even know if the candidate who stands going to be there or whatever. But Ohio is one of these swing states, obviously, and I'm curious to talk to Dagger to Dagger. He's talking to Andrew. It's tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock here on Full Work on Sunday, so people could watch that, and he's going to try to pick up what the mood is in Ohio. I mean, it's a conventional thing that people would say is, look, we're not idiots. We know that Vance and Trump aren't terribly popular, and we're finally not changing a lot of minds, but we need to remind our voters that they need to get out there. And that could be right, but it's a pretty small, I mean, I think there's a lot of data we've looked at this years ago, and it's involved in these things a little more. You move a half a point in the polls when you visit this place, and 48 hours later, the effects dissipate it. You know, people like to have, I mean, in the old days, they were newspapers, so it was a headline, but let's just say you see more about it in your local feeds, I suppose, if you're at Ohio, and it's like, hey, it's great. He came to Ohio, he's not neglecting us, but it's, I don't know, seems unlikely to think that Trump or Vance are really going to change people's minds by giving some stump speech. I think directionally is also the question, right? Like, maybe they move at a half a point, but in which direction? Do you really want to be out on the stump, reminding people why their gas prices are high, and how tone deaf you are about all of that? You're just saying it's a PR problem, and that, you know, people can afford less gas, can you just drive less, just like they can deal with fewer barbies, a Christmas, or whatever. Like I think that sending him out to campaign for these candidates may not actually have the effect that is intended, because it may make more salient the cause behind some of their frustrations, but we'll see. Those watching listening, yes, you should definitely tune in to hear Bill and Andrew tomorrow. Andrew will be live from Ohio, giving us on the ground reporting on what's going on there about the politics and the grief and frustration that a lot of people are feeling in Ohio right now about how the Haitian community has been treated. But in the meantime, thanks so much for listening, for watching, for checking us out. Please listen to Bullwork takes, listen to my podcast, receipts, you can find that wherever you get your podcast, Apple podcast, Spotify, wherever, check us out, and otherwise have a great weekend.