Three Days Left. How Bad Could It Get for Republicans? (w/ Sarah Longwell) | Bulwark on Sunday

crown coins winning never sounded so good what would you do if you want big at crown coins casino real people win real prizes every single day hi this is chelsea from dallas i just hit the jackpot won over 1 million 500k visit crowncoins.com sign up in seconds enter code crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus you may win up to 10 000 sweeps coins crowncoins.com that's c-r-o-w-n coins.com no purchase needed code valid for new users only void were prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply this is matt rogers from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang this is bowen yang from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang we've been talking about kewpie mayo for a minute now and wow so many of you already love this stuff and if you're thinking wait what is kewpie do you not have the internet it's the og japanese mayonnaise the one with the red cap what makes it different egg yolks kewpie is made with egg yolks only giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything chefs use it restaurants use it where chefs work of course food and flavor lovers use it you haven't tried it yet we'll find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about why don't you kewpie the original japanese mayonnaise kewpie hi bill crystal here welcome to bulwark on sunday very pleased to be joined by sarah longwell of course and we will get to discussing everything i guess there's big news coming tuesday i gather there's something interesting happening something's going on yeah what it is so we should talk about that in one minute i do want to first encourage you speaking of the election to uh take a look at our lives obviously all of our election coverage beginning with a live stream tonight at 8 30 p.m on both substack and youtube on the elections that's for paid members of the bulwark so if you've been a little slow getting around to doing what you meant to do anyway which is uh become a bulwark plus member this is a good the next few hours should be a good time to do it but tonight you'll get tim and sam lauren egan andrew egger joe protocol jonathan cone discussing all the latest uh developments and prognostications sarah how are you did you enjoy halloween i did i love halloween it's a great it's a great civic holiday you know where children knock on doors and neighbors greet each other and they i i love i love halloween but my fifth grader he trick-or-treated without me for the first time and i'm dealing with that i'm dealing with that that's all right that's that's that's one step on the you know going away to college on the road to leave the country and i'm dealing with that i'm dealing with that i'm dealing with leaving for college and you make your kids are your kids naturally polite did you make them be i was struck with the trick-or-treaters they've been pretty well at least in this area i'd say their parents have treated them pretty well to not simply stick their bucket out and expect you to dump a lot of candy and they at least pretend to be asking you politely you know uh no if my kids want to keep their candy at the end of the night they gotta say trick-or-treat upon opening the door they gotta say thank you upon receiving candy and they gotta say happy halloween upon walking away that's great that's good impressive okay you've been it's been such a year right i mean and you've been doing the focus groups and then the book and talking to so many people voters candidates democratic operatives your big takeaways and what what do you think i mean the biggest takeaway just from the whole year is to think about how trump squandered every piece of advantage he had and the reason that we're pretty big election night for democrats are because of choices trump made not things that happened to him right this wasn't covid this wasn't the after effects and supply chain disruptions of covid the inflation of covid this was trump walking into an environment where he said no uh stupid wars i'm gonna lower grocery prices on day one i'm gonna end the ukraine uh and russia war i mean just he made every single promise uh and instead people like he made every single promise that they made and he made every single promise that they made and he made every single promise that they made and then he did the tariffs and then he did the war and both of those things have driven up people's costs everybody know they were know that they were trump's idea that he wanted to do them uh and so there's no this was joe biden's fault um and then you know the other thing is just about how well uh the environment lined up for democrats i shouldn't just say the environment but think about all of the things that are about to happen you have you have tough economy war going on okay so then you've got a president with an approval rating that is somewhere between 32 and 38 but historically low going into going into a midterm and then you've got really strong democratic candidates not in every single race but in most of the races and then in republican the republican candidates are sort of almost worse than they were were in 2022 when they had a horrible uh candidate situation but they're sort of worse this time at least then they were sort of ostentatious attention getters like kerry lake or um herschel walker this time who are they that's like a bunch of guys named either rogers or roger or collins or mike john somebody's got a nice ass we don't know but like they're just these really middling uh candidates that republican voters haven't been excited about and so you know if 2025 was a year where i listened to voters you get increasingly worried about the way trump was doing things at the beginning they were like look rome wasn't built in the day you got to give him time they don't think he means i'm going to end things on day one but by this point now they know he's made a bunch of mistakes and that it is his fault and so watching them go from give him time to i'm out i'm done i'm angry um has been in such a short period of time is pretty remarkable though it is i want to ask you about from the focus groups in particular just sort of what what you've seen that people like who've just been you know reading a lot but trying to follow at a slightly one level less granular level uh might have missed but i just thought on that last point for a second people are not sufficiently struck by the movement i mean the first six months trump was hanging in there pretty well every discussion you and i were in with democratic operators or anyone really in washington or elsewhere was kind of what's with the public will they ever see what's going on i mean they see it's not going to happen but i think it's going to happen and i think it's going to happen but i think it's going to happen and i think it's going to happen and i think it's going to happen trump's got a remember how much of this there was trump's got a magical hold democrats they can never get a messaging messaging messaging it's terrible you know how do they do this in macro world we don't have our own media we don't have this and that not all those things were foolish and some of them were made problems incidentally but i mean it was such defeatism and fatalism and now everyone's going to decide that this was always going to happen and trump when you said the bush line at 32 percent when i said that was early when i said three four five months ago the senate could well be in play not just the house and it could be a real big wave not just to cut it you know medium-sized one people both thought those things were crazy the bush line was like this fantastic thing that you discovered from roging through polls in 20 in 20 in 2006 or 2008 but of course it could never happen to trump the base is so much stronger so much bigger it'd be a miracle to get him to 42 or 44 right i mean that was anyway i think people should appreciate how the public was a little slow more slowly than we'd like sometimes but how big a move it has been but but say a bad word about that but particularly i am curious about the focus i mean what what at the granular level would strike people that isn't so obvious is one issue more important than another that's a little underrated the war i'm just curious what you see there yeah i guess if i had to come up with a theme and actually i should have thought about this beforehand but it strikes me that there's a real broken promises i was not duped people don't really say like i was duped but they're sort of like he lied to me um he lied to us um and and that that you know it's funny because it's almost with everything trump right as an admission uh it's like they do this promises made promises kept and the voters very much have a no you didn't you didn't release the epstein files you didn't lower grocery prices you didn't stop stupid wars and so this and and and and to tie it all together like you are being very corrupt and my life is getting worse i see the corruption like the contrast is also very clear um this time around but just to say on the movement thing actually and then i'll go back and finish that thought but i i one of the things i think about is the insanity right now of looking at people saying it's neck and neck in south carolina here's guys south carolina is an r plus 18 state okay they hold an 18 point advantage do you know how much movement there has to be in an electorate to get a swing to where they are now even now look i'm not predicting they went in south carolina i think they likely will win in south carolina but the fact that it is close is astounding and if you look at texas if you look at kansas like kansas is an r plus or trump plus 16 state that means two years ago they voted uh plus 16 for donald trump um and so that is just how disappointed they are so when i listen to voters and it's one of the reasons i like qualitative more than i like quantitative is that the thing that you detect is like a depressed nature like they are frustrated they are depressed they understand that standing by trump was something that had become a little bit a part of their identity like they don't want to admit that they're wrong they don't want to admit that they've been had but they're forced to say things are going really poorly and it is primarily because of tariffs and the war and they hear trump saying affordability crisis is a hoax they hear trump saying everything is great. And they're like, no, it's not. You're lying. to us. I have the sense, but I'm curious whether you think this is right, that on the corruption issue, it really, you never know what straw is going to break the camel's back or whatever metaphor one wants. And like, there's so much of it. And a lot of people were saying, and I kind of thought this myself a few months ago, I guess it's just never going to break through. I mean, they could just do endless beyond belief levels of corruption and graft and grift. And apparently they're just going to be a story and then it goes away. And then there's another one two days later with ones with Witkoff and ones with Jared and ones with Trump himself and ones with God knows what big crypto. And, and, um, it feels like maybe it hit critical mass at some point. Do you, the corruption thing, am I right? That that's become a bigger issue than we thought that I thought at least it would be a few months ago. Yeah. But there's also something here. Um, so everybody really, you know, their eyes went big when they saw that Fox news poll that had corruption as the top issue. But this to me is a little bit like when democracy became the top issue. Where I just want to caution people from thinking that it is all these voters saying that Trump is corrupt. It is a lot of voters saying that, right? They're pointing out all the ways that Trump is corrupt, but then hardcore partisan Republicans are saying, well, what about, and then they'll say, well, what about the Somali fraud? What about the, what Nancy Pelosi did? And so the discourse ends up elevating the salience of an issue like corruption. And so I just, I want to caution people that not everybody means the same thing when they talk about corruption. However, going back to this idea of it being a contrast election, uh, this election is many things, but one of them is, is the distinct contrast. And that is voters are pretty aware, not of every single scandal, but of the totality of them. And most specifically that Trump has been focused on the ballroom. He has been focused on the reflecting pool and the arch and what they see as his big donors, um, which all of those things make manifest. They know that he's getting richer. Uh, they know that the people around him seem to be getting richer and they're getting poor. Like they think he's not paying attention. If, and I keep saying this, that one of my most bummer pieces of analysis is that I think if people were doing fine and if the economy was doing well, I'm not sure that they would be penalizing Trump for corruption. I think his voters would be totally ignoring it. But because their lives are materially worse, they notice it. No, that's, that's awfully important. I, that sounds, that sounds right to me. I mean, I'd make one point that I've been struck by just thinking about partly was a bit on, uh, all these panels like you have and zooms and stuff recently. And there is this, um, well, two things I'm struck that the elites have, I mean, if you had told me a year ago, Trump, we're looking at a wave that could be as I think it's going to be very, very big. Some people think it just can be very big or big, but it's going to be a big wave. I think it's going to be a big wave. I think it's going to be, uh, that this would happen with no obvious desertions among the elites are very few in the sense that, you know, the law firms have been totally quiet. The business community with tech people are as bad as that for the business community, you know, no obvious, I mean, a lot of quiet murmuring, I'm going to have to hire some democratic lobbyists and stuff, but no obvious turn against them. The universities, the ones that were fighting or fighting with the others have been quiet, uh, media probably worse than it was a year or two ago with CBS. And, and so forth. Um, I mean that the public has moved as much without any and Republican party, no for all the occasional murmur from one, you know, Bill Cassidy or Don Bacon. I mean, basically they've done, there's no fracturing there by any, by elected officials or governors or senators and without, so without getting signals from elites, which is how people of course function in the world, right? I mean, they have to be roughly busy. You kind of assume that people know more about certain things that you do and that you voted for them in the past if they're Republicans or you respect them because they're community leaders. They've gotten very little of that, the voters, and yet they've moved so much, let's just say 12 points, 14 points. And it's a very big number. What do you think about it? He had 50 and he goes to 38. That's a quarter of his boat of his supporters, right? I mean, in approval and, and, and we'll see a pretty big move, I think in the ballot too. So I really am struck by that. I mean, I would not have predicted that. I think I would have thought that you would have to have, and I think this has been true in the past. So you had much more defections from elites that correlated with, or led to the defections from the public. I know that was true at 05, 06. I was around then I was involved. I was a supporter of the Iraq war. And it was very obvious that you had all kinds of very well respected people saying, oh, this was got badly. This is a mistake. I was wrong to vote for it. If I was a Democrat, some Republicans leaving, you know, the ship. And so that made it easier for voters who had voted for Bush in 04 to vote for Democrats in 06. This is happening in 2020, 24, 20, 26, without a lot of that signaling. Don't you think it's pretty striking? I think I do. I do. I mean, there's a couple of things going on there. One is one of the massive differences between 2006 and 2026 is that in the intervening 20 years, the media environment and the information environment has completely changed. And so people are elites just do not have the signaling power that they once did. They mostly have it among other elites. I also think we are in an age of deeply broken and cowardly elites. And part of the populist moment means that elites no longer lead. They follow the waves of the population. And this is why public opinion is so important. And this is why winning is really important, is because the elites are doing less to send the signals, but they are very much receiving the signals, which is part of the reasons that they broke so hard and acted in such a cowardly way with Trump. Now, I consider that to be an abdication of the role of leadership that they hope to occupy. But I do think that's what's happening is they're kind of standing back and waiting to see what happens next. And I think that's what's happening is they're kind of standing back and waiting to see what happens next. And so I think they're going to be a lagging indicator here in 2026 and that you may see them start to move knowing where things could be shifting in 2028. But the other thing that I will say is that, wait, what were we talking about? We were talking about, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, it's the negative personal consequences. Okay. So this is the other thing that's important. And I want to tie it back to something I was doing with corruption, which is, again, it's sort of a bummer of analysis, right? Why did we, we want to people to break with Trump? We'll take, I want him below the Bush line. That takes all kinds of things. What do I want it to be? I want it to be because he's an abject racist. He got us into this war. He is a liar. He is hanging out with dictators who kill people and giving them comfort, like everything about him. That's why I want people to break with him. Instead, they're going to break with him over negative personal consequences, which is like, they have high gas prices. They have high grocery prices. And that's why the elite signaling matters less too. Like they will just tell you, and because the elites are not having to feel the negative consequences of this election, the way that Trump's base is, especially in rural areas. And so I think that disconnect is really there. I think it's a very shrewd point about elites, uh, not having the clout they want to have, obviously, and being a lagging indicator. I do think it's important as a practical matter in 27, 28 for Democrats to give some thought though, to how to induce or pressure elites to become neutral, at least as opposed to Trump acquiescence and Trump. And the real world, it does matter if law firms, if people at prestigious law firms are willing to volunteer for voting rights cases and civil liberties cases and anti-ice cases or not. And the real world, it matters where business contributions go. I mean, I think this wave will be so big, it won't matter that Elon Musk has spent $500 million and, and a lot of other big shots have given us a ton of money to Trump directly and indirectly. But so I think it's important for Democrats to think about real power and at the state level, as well as the federal level. And really, they don't really think this way. Usually, you know, they're into messaging, but they're not figuring out what levers of power could be used. And there are these institutions in America that have a lot of power, and it's been used in the wrong direction. That's what's so striking about 25, 26. We used the wrong direction mostly for the last two years. And even so, I think the public's going to do pretty much the right thing. But you're right about the lagging can be, they can lag. They're now going to want to be a little less obviously in Trump's pocket, but it's important that they actually, you know, just stop sending. I mean, so revealing in 21, 22, you and I talked about this at the time. January 6th happens. All these businesses, we're never going to give money to these 150 House Republicans who are election deniers. That's terrible. That's just a red mark that can't go away. Literally six months, 12 months later, let's start giving our contribution to the pro-business Republicans so they can win the House and stop Biden's horrible socialist left-wing agenda, right? I mean, the capitulation there, but this was a capitulation to a party that was out of power. I mean, you know, I mean, it was a good, it was a good indicator of what they would do in 24. And even though even having said that, I, even I was surprised by the speed and, and, uh, you know, what's the word for kind of the scope of the capitulation, but important, I think, to have counter-capitulation at 27, 28. Can I just say that this was, that was, it was a good, it was good for us to know this about our institutions, because I think we might have assumed it would be different. I certainly, I mean, so much of my journey in this, uh, time is, is having just expectations. More from people who had given every signal that you could expect more from them, that they would sort of do the right thing. A lot of these institutions. And when push came to shove, Like when they were weighed and measured and the moment happened, we know who caved and it was most of them, which means this is a I talk a lot about leadership and the importance of leadership. But the next president, hopefully a Democrat, and this is why it's so important for me that they not mimic Donald Trump, is that we have to rebuild some of the civic courage and sort of the idea that that part of being somebody to whom this country has given much. And if you're a business elite, then that certainly has that you see some obligation to invest in its people, in its in its schools, but most importantly, in the liberal democracy. That makes your business life possible and its stability and seeing them not do this like that's just that is a generational thing that I think we have to rebuild in this country. No, that's so important and well said. I mean, one thing on the on the at the end of the day, obviously, people vote on their real interests and what they see around them in reality and they see the gas prices and so forth. I absolutely take that point and you've discovered it over and over. And I think it was very important, as you said earlier, though, that the things they saw around them were unambiguously. Describable to Trump. I mean, that's the terrorists of the war. Right. It wasn't like, gee, that was confusing. It was a bipartisan vote to go to war in Iran. So who can really blame Trump? Because the Democratic leadership in the Congress was for it. Not which was incidentally 2000, when the effect of Iraq was delayed because 2004, you know, John Kerry had voted for the war. Hillary Clinton had voted for the war. John Edwards had voted for the war. It's a little hard to sort of make it as clear an issue as the Democrats have this time. But, I mean, you and I were so involved in 2020, 2022 Republican voters against Trump. This is not a bulwark thing, but a different thing. But and there we were talking about flipping Republicans who had some of them would either voted for Trump. But in any case, a Republican in the past to vote Democratic. And we've worked hard and I think we succeeded some. And that's what happened in 2020. It's why Biden won. Trump's base turned out in 2020. Trump's vote in 20. He's not lying when he says his vote in 2020 was higher than his vote in 2016, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage in the third party stuff, fourth party stuff in 2016. And so Trump, you know, there was there was we flipped votes. We didn't really suppress Trump's turnout. I'm going to say in 20 in 2020, this does seem to be I think one reason this really will be a wave is there's quite a lot of evidence of voters flipping. Obviously, you just can see that in the polling, basically. That's how you get to a generic plus eight from a Republican plus two in 2022, let's say, in the last off year. But there's also real turnout effects. And there I would say my only slight modification. Of its only gas prices, which isn't your position, but I mean, this is a position of a lot of Democratic operatives is who's turning out, who's disproportionate, whose turnout is disproportionately going up blacks in the South and Latinos, especially in Texas, but also it looks like in Florida, actually. And those two states are now really in play. And with blacks, it's also putting South Carolina more in play and Mississippi, maybe Louisiana. Now, they are obviously being affected by economic factors and they're lower income, so they're somewhat more affected. But at the end of the day, the black family, white family drive up to a gas station, it's the same hike in gas prices. The black vote is up because of California voting rights and the fact that they saw their own state legislatures eager to get rid of the one or two or three black members of Congress that now represented districts in their states. And obviously, the Latinos, Hispanics, it's I assume ICE and related stuff. So there I mean, there's been a little more now they have a particular interest. In those issues, so it's not exactly an interest in you might say in democracy in the most, you know, general or absolute sense, but it is an interest in the rule of law and democracy. I mean, that's what they get. Right. It's not simply material interest, I guess. I actually think, again, I'm sort of struck by that, that they are the ones who sort of saw so we cannot live in a country that has this attitude towards immigrants or this attitude towards black citizens. And that's they have them more of that. They feel that more strongly than an awful lot of, you know, big shot Democrats. So we're all for civil rights. They're gonna be wrong and they're all for being nice. Democrats say they are. But in Washington, you know, yeah, I mean, I think it's a I think it's you are right that it is absolutely a democracy issue. I think that gets a little academic because I think, again, it is about negative personal consequences. Right. What a black voter is seeing. They're seeing their rights being rolled back. Right. They're seeing people the the the places that had been sort of that were they saw as as there. Or that they saw as part of a reflection of giving them a voice in politics gets taken away. And for Hispanics, because this is one of the things I'm struck by, you know, almost nobody's harder on immigration policies in America than Hispanics and focus groups. They do not like illegal immigration. They feel like it casts everybody in a bad. You know, they take it. They take it personally. But what has happened is, is that they often live American Latinos live in neighborhoods where they have seen. Massive ICE presence where they've seen them at their schools, where they've seen people who they were like, yeah, we should get rid of criminals. We should get rid of people who are doing bad things. But then they saw them, you know, drag the grandma down the street out or of her house. And then they saw people getting deported to places that weren't even their home countries. And that is absolutely making a difference. But also they live in this economy. Right. They and they. But I think one of the things about Latinos, that's one of the things I'm really watching this election. I think a lot of people are both because it's so important in Texas, but also because I think Republicans thought they had made made generational gains with Latinos in the last election. I think they thought they had made generational gains with a younger cohort of voters. Neither of those things turned out to be true. Those are kinds of the people who abandoned them first because they tended to be. Economic voters, mostly. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. One last thing is just you were talking about turnout. This is the whole story of twenty twenty six, in my opinion, like my prediction of what is about to happen is going to one hundred percent be due to, yes, high turnout from Democrats and Democrat breaking independence or independence, casting a protest vote. But I think when we look back and I could be wrong, I guess it's totally me making a bet here. But is that those Republican rural voters don't show up? The Trumpy rural voters that usually provide him such high margins that they don't show up because those are the people most hurt by the prices. Those are the people have to drive longer distances. And so gas prices. This is where I come from. I know these places. Right. You've got to drive forty five minutes to get to the nearest sort of hub like gas prices really matter to you. It's also where they have cornfields and the diesel prices matter and people work as truck drivers. So all of that. But also it is where they have lots of land. And so it is where the data centers are. And so they are people who are concerned that their energy prices are being driven up by data centers. They are concerned about the the blight of data centers. Right. They don't want them in their area because they're big, they're noisy, they they mess with wildlife. And third, they are worried that they're going to come take their jobs eventually, that this is this is going to contribute to it contributes to what is a deep economic anxiety. And so I think something that's about to happen is, one, I think depressed voters lead to depressed turnout. That is my overarching theory of twenty, twenty six. Winning never sounded so good. What would you do if you want big at Crown Coins Casino? Real people win real prizes every single day. Hi, this is Chelsea from Dallas. I just hit the jackpot. One over one million five hundred K. Visit Crown Coins dot com. Sign up in seconds, enter code crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus. You may win up to ten thousand sweeps coins. Crown Coins dot com. That's C-R-O-W-N coins dot com. No purchase needed. Code valid for new users only. Void where prohibited by law. Eighteen plus terms and conditions apply. Crown Coins Casino. But I also think like we're on the precipice of something funny and new, which is that the technological and communications things that have changed are leading people to an entire new generation of leaders. I feel a little bit bad for Gen X because I think they're just getting skipped in it and we're going right to Gen Z or Gen Y. And so you're going to see, you know, if you look at John Ossoff and you look at Pete Buttigieg, all of these. I mean, all of them. I mean, AOC, but even J.D. Vance, you're talking about a new generation of politicians that are in their late thirties and early forties. And it is partly because there's been so much technological upheaval and there seems to be so much anxiety about what the future brings. People are looking for sort of a more technologically savvy, information savvy generation. And I think those Gen X candidates got caught in the sour spot of communication. Where like they were raised by speeches and conventional tactics, but like kind of understand the new model. But so it comes off a little weird versus the new generation of people who are really native to all of that. So anyway, that was a lot of different things. But you could mention Tallarico and Turek. Tallarico, Turek, exactly. I think you're right. And everyone assumes those are sort of the lefty candidates. And there are some like that for Mamdani, obviously, last year and now El-Sayed. But it's also moderate candidates. It's like Tallarico. So it's an interesting, it is, some of it's more generational maybe than ideological. And one thing that strikes me is Ohio. I'm sure we'll look, Texas is going to be huge on election night. I think Florida could be very big. Even if Florida, I think Florida actually may come through. But even if it falls short, it'll show a lot about what's happening in neighboring states. You're calling for Florida. Yeah, I think, I think Jolly. I slightly bet on Jolly Wedding and I think Nixon could make it as a chance. I just don't think it's more like a two and five chance. But I mean, I've looked there pretty close. Florida has a huge early vote and they're now really counting on a big Republican election day vote. And if you look at Florida, it doesn't have a history of having a disproportionate Republican vote. Anyway, without getting all the weeds, I think it's going to be close. And there you do need, though, you have a big Republican advantage and party idea in both Texas and Florida. So you do need some flipping as well as some disproportionate turnout. And we'll see what happens in both those states. But Ohio, for me, one of the things that really I just had an election on, I kind of almost couldn't believe, is Ohio is the state where J.D. Vance is from, where he did the Asians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs and stuff, which Trump repeated. The governor of Ohio, the Republican mayor of Springfield, said this is ludicrous and nonsense and bad. And nonetheless, Ohio, this was a big local thing for them. Ohio voted, what, 11, 12 points for Trump in 2024. Ohio is now going to go, you know, I think Brown is going to win. They're both, and Acton's going to beat Ramos Fonda. He's been a particularly bad candidate. So, you know, but still, they're going to probably win pretty easily, actually. So you're going to have a massive switch in Ohio. I mean, it can be like 15 points in one year, right? And more, maybe. And it has kind of been the center of the Haitian stuff. We did that event. It's been on my mind as we were out there. What, a month ago and stuff. But I think that will be a, I mean, it's disappointing that they weren't more offended by all that stuff in 2024, but maybe heartening that seeing it in practice, you know, I do think, how much of it is that? Don't you think? I mean, some of the smart students of authoritarianism who, when I was really depressed after November 24, said, look, once they have to govern, it's a different story, you know? And people say, oh, yeah, we have to be tougher on immigration. And I say, mass deportation signs? Are people really for that? Do they understand what it means? And the answer is, well, they're not really, they don't really understand what it means. They think it means. It means getting rid of a lot of violent criminals and some people who stuck across the border last year. And I do think the same with the Haitians, right, in Springfield. And I guess governing turned out to be a problem for Trump's authoritarianism. Trump did. It did. And I guess we talk about this some, but I'm not sure if we emphasize it enough, that Trump in his first term, the guardrails kept everybody from touching the stove. And, you know, now that we have 10 years of hindsight, I think that, you know, you know, it's such a tough call in Trump one to say, do you work for him? Do you try to help make sure it's not a disaster? Is it a is there a sort of a moral obligation to be the steady state in the face of him? And look, it's scary to say this because it's such the stakes are so high. But I think if you left it up to me to change it, I would say don't work for him. People need to see what it is because so that we don't do it again. Which is why. And this goes to, again, 2026 for me is my is I hope what we've been waiting for but haven't gotten since 2016, which is even though we've had wins and in fact, mostly wins, 18 was a win. 20 was a win. Twenty two was a wild overperformance. Yet none of them were a thorough repudiation of Trump. None of them left the Republican Party. None of them left the Republican Party asking themselves the necessary questions about, you know, it kept reinforcing all of the terrible things that they were doing by them not being just like thrown out. And so it forced all of us to reckon with how much racism there was, how much tolerance of an aspiring authoritarian there was as long as things were kind of kept smooth. And so this time, this time, and we should just acknowledge, so it has a lot to do with prices and the end. It's not just the political environment, but this time might be that thorough repudiation. It won't be for all the reasons we want it to be, but it will be because of bad governance. And so that may that may cause the kind of soul searching, rethinking the party exercise that does pull us back from the brink. And so, you know, I've spent the weekend fighting with people over the fact that I'm endorsed, endorsing like whatever. But like I'm like, yeah, people should vote for Abdul El-Sayed. And. You know, there's people who are upset about that. But this is not a hard question for me right now. This is that I need Troy Jackson. I want Troy Jackson to win. And so it's it's it's time for Trump and for Republicans to feel the full weight of what they've done. That's that's funny. I just had a note to myself about the repudiation thing to maybe write about tomorrow morning in part because I think it's such an important point. I mean, you and I were on in 2020 on election night and after and we were. Happy that Biden had won. It was pretty clear he'd won, obviously, and even though Trump then tried spent the next two months trying to overturn it, I never really thought he would get away with it. This was such a last ditch kind of thing. And he had to overturn three states, right? If it had just been Georgia, who knows what would have happened? But luckily there was there was a cushion and that was pretty clear on election night. But we were sort of down because Republicans gained seats in the House. There was no Democrats. It wasn't even clear on election whether they were going to win the Senate. They ended up winning the two Georgia seats and barely won the Senate. But it wasn't a thorough repudiation. Biden's margin went to six from Hillary's two, as I recall, on the popular vote, which is nice, but it's a plus four. It's not we're not talking FDR like, you know, 1932 results or Reagan 1980 results. Right. And so I think we had the sense I think this we were right about. I mean, we were right to be somewhat depressed, is too strong, worried on election night of 2020. And the others were all partial repudiations. Obviously, the Republicans picked up Senate seats in 2018, which was very important for 20 for the next two years. They confirmed another Supreme Court justice. And in 2022, Republicans won the House, even though Biden, the Democrats outperformed the normal midterm. They still were able to seize one chamber. And so and then, of course, 2024. So people are undressed. They don't get 26. This will feel this could feel different, should feel different and probably will have real different effects. So let me close by asking you about that. What say a little bit more about what you think the real effects? Obviously, that's very hard to tell us. We haven't really done this experiment before of a kind of Trump. Like 10 years, what what follows it? But what effects do you think on the Republican side and what effects do you think on the Democratic side? Well, certainly on the Democratic side, look, whatever happens now as we sort through the data, it's about to be Christmas for me, guys, because we're going to get all this data and it's going to tell a story. Who overperformed to underperformed? What does it say about even it's going to give us more information looking back on 2024, but it's going to give us a lot of information about 2028. And here's just imagine if Democrats flip. Texas, the need to then invest in Texas, if Texas is doable for Democrats, then then there needs to be big Democratic infrastructure built there. And and we got to start thinking about Texas as a swingier state that Democrats can win. I think it's going to do a lot to inform people about which candidates overperform in red states if they pick up a place like Kansas. And so there's just going to be a lot of we're going to learn. A ton from this. But also, I think it's going to need to teach Democrats in 2028 who how how you run. Right. And they're going to have to start thinking about the fact that if Republicans were repudiated or just repudiated on costs, that they're going to have to explain what their vision is for the future of America. And also, the margins are going to matter a great deal. Like if they get up, if they have this insane wave and they get. 57 seats. That makes you think slightly differently about what is doable in terms of accountability. And so anyway, I mean, I can't. And oh, look, then there's the governor's races. We haven't really talked about how important the governor's races are. So, for example, guys, this is not I wish him wellness, good health. But if Rob Sand is governor of Iowa, Chuck Grassley is like ninety two, ninety three years old. You know. You know, it's going to there's just the fact that there's going to be so many Democratic governors in so many places. Obviously, good news for those of us who worry about the election denialism or Trump not leaving. You know, there's just and then state legislatures and then the low like they could break the Republican control in a bunch of places. So it'll affect gerrymandering. I mean, there's just it's a really important one, guys. They need to focus on. Yes, they do. I'm doing a lot to, however, capitalize on what is a kind of unique moment of repudiation of Trump is 28 is going to be a forward looking election, a presidential choice, more choice, less a referendum. So, yeah, I agree. The party building, but also the message development and the institutional thinking about how to use the states that they have control of and the governorships. I mean, just it is people have said it's been so important and I think correctly. So because of judicial confirmations and a bunch of other things and just having two houses so much more makes you so much stronger than having one. So this house is done. So Senate becomes so important. But the governors. So right now, Democrats control, surprisingly, actually, 10 of the 14 largest 10 of the 14 largest states. They have the governorships. They don't control all of the legislative bodies in those. Ohio is going to flip. So that's 11. The other three are Texas and they're very big. Texas, two of them are the second and third largest Texas of Florida and then Georgia, which is a big state. I think Democrats, they're all three in play. It's just hard to know what happens in any of them, honestly. But. it probably surprised the democrats didn't win any of them you're getting real democratic in some of these states. And that also does affect the future. I very much agree with that. I mean, Texas starts to look like the next Georgia and North Carolina starts to look like the next Virginia. And one irony of this incident, Lisa, this I slightly wrong. I thought the Midwest would flip more easily. I was early on Kansas, I will say to my credit, but you know, Iowa, Kansas, but maybe up to Nebraska because fewer evangelicals generally up there and therefore, and good moderate democratic candidates. And I think that's happening. And I think that will happen in Kansas and could happen in two or three other states up there in the Great Plains states even. But in the South, I thought, man, that's a tough haul because the evangelical, we talk about the white working class, people do, but the evangelical white working class is a heck of a lot more Trumpy than the non-religious white working class. And that's been very true in the last bunch of elections. But the South looks, I mean, the Sunbelt, which was the Republican growth area, you know, Democrats were hanging out with their fingernails to the shrinking Midwest states and the Republicans were growing in Texas and Florida. I mean, can you imagine if those become, you know, Georgia-like or Virginia-like even? I mean, that really changes American politics going forward. The governorship and having the governorship of either Florida or Texas is a real dagger in the heart of the Republicans. Now, only if it's followed up on them. If they just lose them promptly in 2030, that doesn't do that much good. I mean, that's good still for 2020. It does a lot of good for 2028. What would you do if you won big? At Crown Coins Casino, real people win real prizes. Every single day. Won over 1,500,000 K. Visit crowncoins.com. You may win up to 10,000 sweeps coins. crowncoins.com. That's C-R-O-W-N, coins.com. No purchase needed. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Crown Coins Casino. Final point on that, since you and I were so concerned in 22 about election subversion. I mean, Michigan, the big three states up in the Midwest, look fine for the governorship. Certainly Pennsylvania, Michigan, probably Wisconsin. Georgia, we'll see up in the air. Nevada, the Republican, isn't really a big election denier. Arizona should hold Democratic. So I do think, especially if you win though, Texas and or Florida and Georgia, you've done a pretty decent job in this off year. This has been the point of it, in preventing, making it much harder for Trump to do the real election subversion in 2028, right? That's kind of important for me, sort of. I'm so excited about the wave we've forgotten about. Kind of let's make sure that we actually make it harder for Trump to steal the 2028 election, you know? Yeah, and also, you know, because I did a lot of what it means for Democrats, but if there's just a total rout tonight, J.D. Vance running in 2028 also gets a lot harder for Republicans. There's a reason that Marco Rubio is like, only when he's forced to go out and sort of defend Elon Musk on the Ukraine and Starshield stuff, other than that, he's trying to stay so far away. from so many of these things, because, like, J.D. could end up done before he even starts. I do want to ask you something. I know we're in the 40th minute, but we're just hanging out here. I don't know if you have somewhere to go. I don't. I'm just sitting here reading early voting data, which no friend should let any friend look at early voting data, but it's still what I'm doing. But somebody put it in the chat, and so I just pulled it up. Haley Stevens went to church with Mike Rogers in Detroit this morning. Um, and I wanted to ask you, because I've thought about this a lot, and because it kind of went viral, my explaining why I was voting for El-Sayed, and I would say that the main pushback that I get on this is that, um, Abdul El-Sayed is an anti-Semite. Um, and I wonder what you think of that. Um, you're a, you're a Jewish man in support, who has long been a supporter of Israel, but, uh, you know, I last night was like losing my mind because there's that guy who I had to learn about. I, I'm glad I waited so long to have to learn about him, but his name is Cenk Unger, and he had this horrible tweet about all you've got to do if you're a Black person is like wrap yourself in Israeli flag and you can say you're Van Jones. Um, super gross. He's also the one who ran, uh, that very gross ad, um, in, I don't even think he ran it. I think it was, I think he just released it online or something from his pack, uh, saying that it was like an ad saying, the reason your grocery prices are higher is because, uh, of American support for Israel. Uh, so for people who think he's anti-Semitic, I, I have a response that I would like to give, uh, which is that, and just to say it plainly, Abdul was my third choice. Uh, I was a Mallory McMorrow person and then a Haley person. And now I'm, would absolutely support Abdul over my, over my, over my, over my, I don't like, uh, the fact that he didn't come out and sort of just repudiate that. I'd be, I also think it would have been good politics if he had done that, um, just as a political athlete matter, but he has apologized for the hurt people, hurt people. Um, and I would, so, but, but I am not, I wouldn't say I'm a hundred percent comfortable with, um, how he talks about Israel, even knowing that Americans very much are moving toward wanting to reevaluate America's relationship with Israel. However, when people talk about this, I'm just watching people totally ignore that Donald Trump today called Abdul El-Sayed a jihadi. Just casually, most, like a lot of Republicans are calling him a jihadist. Uh, they saying he's, he's with the Muslim Brotherhood. Like the level of smear campaign and racism. Um, I, it's like, it's honestly like, it'll blow your hair back. And just to see the way people just ignore it is, is wild to me. Um, so that's my, my feeling. And my feeling is also because I want this thorough repudiation. Um, I'm not saying that there aren't people like if, um, if, if the guy who, uh, like abused his, uh, his wife met Mike Collins, uh, no, there's so many people, Max Miller, Max Miller. Thank you. If he was a Democrat running, I would never, I would not say to vote for him, but like my threshold's real high on right now, who, who I would, uh, for the sake of, of winning, but, uh, or for the thorough repudiation of Trump. What do you make of, uh, Haley Stevens, apparently campaigning with the Republican who, by the way, is like an election denying no abortion, anti-gay marriage, all the things Trump acolyte. Um, so, but what do you think? No, I'm really just where you are. I mean, I wouldn't know what you, I can't really say it better. I mean, I would have voted against him in the primary. I hope he is not influential on, uh, a lot of issues with the democratic conference. One way to make him less influential is to elect more Democrats like Ossoff and Hamilton and Turek and, uh, uh, Tallarico and, and even Angie Dixon, who's more to the left, but it's certainly not like. Dude, I'm sorry, Bill. I'm sorry. Breaking. She just endorsed him. Haley Stevens just endorsed Mike Rogers. She just made an endorsement video. It's I mean, she seems to have had some kind of nerve. Honestly, just breakdown or something. I don't know what's going on there, but whatever. She's very unhappy that she lost the primary, uh, find it. Look, you know what? Free country. If she wants to endorse, she thinks she genuinely thinks Mike Rogers be a better Senator and that it doesn't matter if Democrats control the Senate. I guess she's entitled to think that, but I'm the idea that everyone's having a heart attack, that this guy's going to be one of 55 democratic senators, or even if it's 51 or 52 or 49, I suppose, conceivably, it's not going to be that, but, uh, is a little ridiculous on the other end. They should look at some of these parties in the past and they've been one or two fringe people now, I don't think he should be in leadership. I don't think they should follow his lead in the Senate. Obviously I'd be upset if a lot of people decide to, uh, follow his foot in his footsteps, you know, one way not to follow his footsteps is to make sure that Benson wins the governor's race by a much bigger margin than it does the Senate race, which I think is very likely, which was, and this, I say that these other candidates run in tougher states than Michigan, right? I mean, and that therefore you can't say that that's the future of the party. So I'm, I'm very much where you are. And, and, and also I don't know, look, I don't know what's in his heart. So the anti-Semite thing I think is both serious problem, anti-Semitism and thrown around too casually. He's very anti-Israel. There's no question about that. And I don't like that. And I hope that that doesn't spread in the party. But again, one way to have it not spread in the party is to make sure that it's a bigger democratic wave. So anyways, Haley Stevens, I don't know this can make any difference. Honestly, the voters really look up and think I'm going to take my lead from a embittered primary loser. I I'm a little dubious about that, but. Well, maybe, I mean, we don't know. I, I feel like in a lot of these races, I have, I, I, it's very hard to predict. It's like the, the Alaska thing. I'm generally very dubious of these last minute things, moving voters. I think there's a lot of evidence. They don't partly because there's a lot of early vote incidentally, but occasionally it can make a difference on the margin. So we'll see, but now I'm where you are. I think you said it well, people should be grownups, honestly, and, and understand these are very big parties. And it's not only if they're very concerned, they can go do all these, you know, things that are very, very important to the democracy of the country. And it's, it's not only if they're very concerned, they can do all these things. So I'm with you, but it'll make things a little more, something for the media to write about. The media really is, that doesn't sound like some lefty or something, but why not for one second. The media really does love writing about these interdemocratic fights a little more than the Republican racism and bigotry, which is out of control. Members of Donald Trump's cabinet are posting, I mean, just totally racist things online, right? You saw that thing for Rollins, the agriculture secretary, just flat out, you know, 50s, kind of 1925. They put a sombrero on a pumpkin to say that that's what we should all be scared of. Like, that's the spooky Halloween thing. It's just like the naked racism every day. And I am extremely worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in this country, but also I am watching it happen among Republicans. And I got to say, one of the, like, the Republicans, it's a lot, it's like, it sounds like straight up Nazi stuff. The Democratic stuff is much more about Israel and foreign policy, which is, you can agree or disagree, but I think is, there's a, there feels like a sort of difference in the way, because I don't know, man, that's like the Tucker Carlson. Congrats on you guys connecting on that horseshoe. But I got to say, I'm like, I'm genuine. I'm like knocked back by the fact that Haley just endorsed Mike Rogers. You know, this is where these internecine fights, people get so wrapped up in their, like, I don't know, own, like she, it got to be about her somehow. Yeah. She seems to have lost the, and I understand, look, people were, that was a very bad, gross primary too. And so I'm sure that it left people quite bitter, but like, you're going to campaign with Mike Rogers. What is going on? Yeah, well, this is your generational thing too. Alyssa Slotkin, who does not agree with Abdul El-Sayed on much, has behaved like a grownup and it's to her credit. And she could have sat this out and she's been out there campaigning with him. And, you know, she'll be the other Senator from Michigan and she'll be, I think, kind of far ahead of El-Sayed in terms of not just seniority, but in terms of influence. And, you know, if you want to help have a Democratic Party that's moderate on some of these issues. General and also sort of hawkish on foreign policy and also mostly pro-Israel, not quite pro-Bibi, but which you don't have to be to be pro-Israel, in my opinion. Why don't you go help Democrats like Slotkin, you know, that's what I say to these. But there will be a huge amount of exploitation of this, right, in sort of a certain world of professional Republican pro-Israel types over the next 24, 36 hours. I don't think it'll make a difference, but yeah, little, you know, always these little things come up. I think the election's exciting in the last 36, 48 hours, but yeah. Yeah, that's the closest thing maybe to an October surprise that there's been that could actually have a negative impact on Democrats. I mean, maybe this Mary Peltola stuff in Alaska, although I don't really think so, because everything else has broken Democrats way. And absolutely, there was always this point at which I thought there could be a reversion to the mean, Republicans come home. You're just not seeing that anywhere. And Michigan, I'll say it probably is going to win, but, you know, Michigan, as I say, will underperform the governor's candidate. That's a state that Slotkin won in 2024 against the same candidate, Rogers, despite having Trump at the top of the ticket. So wildly more Trumpy electorate probably in 24, and she still won. And if Tallarico wins in Texas and, you know, Hamilton wins in Kansas and so forth, I think that's the clear, that's the dominant message for the electorate. So I think there's not much question about that. So that's good. So, yeah, I'm looking for this third. I'm looking for the thorough repudiation. That is absolutely. I am. I'm on tender hooks. I've got my PTSD. It's rolling hard. But I believe that that is what's coming. I think the bottom is going to fall out for Republicans, maybe. And I'm interested to see how it's different state by state versus just overwhelming everywhere. But I do. I do think that this depressed electorate for Republicans leads to a depressed turnout, especially in rural areas. And I would say that is my final overall prediction, is that we see the rural numbers, which are a lot of these white working class voters, drop for Republicans to some of the lowest places that they've been. And that, combined with the swing from Hispanics, young people, some of the red pill types, and just sort of swingier economics based independents. Leave Republicans with the worst midterms they will have seen since. I don't know what's the worst midterms that you've ever seen. 2010? I mean, sorry. That was for Democrats. For Republicans, it would be 06. I think this will be worse. I think this will be bigger than 06. That's my view. I think they will actually pick up more Senate seats and probably more House seats, actually, than 06, which was, I think, six Senate seats and 31 House seats. So, they did flip both chambers in 06, so that was comparable. But, yeah, and before 06, I don't know when the biggest Democratic midterm was, because they've all been Republican, right? So, I mean, you have to go way back. So, yeah, yeah. No, this could be a very big – I agree with that. Under the bottom falling out, I kind of – it's been such a steady wave. But I think the combination of the flipping, which, as you say, is a lot. You see a ton of it with younger Hispanics and younger voters generally. But I think a fair amount of it in the normal kind of, as you say, middle class, but even in working class voters moving on more conventionally. You combine that with the turnout differential, it could be very big. So, let's – 48 more hours. We've got to keep ourselves together here, you know? Get distracted. Go see a movie. I don't know, you know? I do think I've got to go see a movie. I've got to go do something else with my brain. I know. Anyway, I'm with you. Thank you, Sarah, for taking the time today. Enjoy the movie, if you go to one. But people should, as I say, who aren't already Billboard Plus members, sign up. You can watch everything. Everything for the next months and years, but really, live stream tonight. And then, of course, there'll be a ton of stuff coming over the next week. And there'll be morning shots tomorrow morning. And there'll be a lot of other things happening. The usual focus groups. Maybe you're taking a little time off. I guess you finished the election. Is there one more election focus group coming, or you've done it? Well, we've got a piece out today about – I've got a piece out today about Michigan. Right. I don't think I can get another one out. We'll see. We'll see. Maybe I'm going to do just like a predictions one, just to lay out what I think. I'll probably do that tomorrow. Sarah, thanks for joining me. Thank you all for joining us on Billboard on Sunday. See you guys. Join us on election night. Join the crowd and get a free Lucky Wheel bonus. CrownCoins.com. No purchase needed. CrownCoins Casino.