September 27th, 2022 – Second Reading Podcast at the Texas Tribune Festival

[00:00:00] Jim Henson: Welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin.

[00:00:06] Intro: The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution, they have become the norm. At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?

[00:00:34] Jim Henson: And welcome back to the second reading podcast. I’m Jim Henson, Director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Uh, I’m very happy to have a variation on our usual approach for this week’s podcast. This past weekend, the Texas Tribune held their annual festival in Austin, uh, and I was happy to be invited to moderate a panel.

[00:00:54] Jim Henson: The organizers dubbed hanging in the balance. This past Saturday, uh, September [00:01:00] 24th, uh, the focus of the panel was the competitive elections in four states that are very much in the spotlight in the 2022 elections, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Today’s podcast is a recording of that panel. The folks at the festival did a great job of recruiting four great journalists from those states to talk about the dynamics of the election in each of their respective states.

[00:01:27] Jim Henson: I introduced them all at the panel, but they are Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, John Roston of the Nevada Independent, Andy Chow of State House News Service in Ohio, and Angela Columbus of Spotlight PA in Pennsylvania. Uh, these journalists did a great job not only capturing what’s happening in their state, but they did it in a, in a really lively matter that what manner that was, uh, very insightful about the themes running through this election season.

[00:01:57] Jim Henson: And if you will, uh, the compare and contrast, uh, in those themes among their states, I think you’ll enjoy it. And here it is. Okay, so I’m just gonna go ahead and start. It’s four 30 and, um, You’ve been welcomed quite a lot by now, . So on behalf of the Texas Tribune, I’m, I’m happy to welcome you to the festival and to our panel hanging in the balance.

[00:02:21] Jim Henson: I’m Jim Henson. I teach at the government department at the University of Texas at Austin, uh, where I’m the director of the Texas Politics Project, which makes you wonder why is he moderating this panel. Then nonetheless, I will be your moderator today. So we’re scheduled for 60 minutes, uh, before we make a all, make a massive move to happy hour.

[00:02:40] Jim Henson: We’ll talk about politics in four states that are in the eye of the storm right now, uh, in the 2022 elections, Georgia and Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And we’ll take some questions from the audience. So, so be thinking about that. I, I would hope. The employers I hear are in the room. You like, don’t ask your employees [00:03:00] questions now.

[00:03:00] Jim Henson: Okay. I say, you know, there’s an HR violation at work. I think if you do that. Uh, so let me introduce the four terrific journalists who have traveled, uh, to be here with us today. I’m gonna keep it brief so that we can get to the heart of the matter. You’ll find longer bios on all of these folks, uh, in the festival material.

[00:03:17] Jim Henson: It’s gonna be great. We’re having a great time in the, in the green room. Uh, so to my immediate left, Greg Bluestein is a political reporter and author who covers the governor’s office in Georgia Politics for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Uh, I also want to note, uh, contractually, I believe Greg will sign copies of his book flipped How Georgia turned Purple and broke the monopoly on Republican Power at 6:00 PM tonight.

[00:03:42] Jim Henson: While we’re all drinking at the festival bookstore at the Omni. And that is hosted by the American Journalism Project. Uh, um, next to Greg is Andy Chow, General assignment reporter, a state government reporter for Ohio State House News. He focuses on environmental, inter energy, agriculture, and [00:04:00] educated and education related issues.

[00:04:02] Jim Henson: Uh, knows a ton about Ohio. It’s great. Next to him, Angela Columbus is an investigator reporter at Spotlight pa. Before joining Spotlight, she worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer, although there was a transition in there in which I suspect there was some overlap. And last, but not certainly, not least, John Rolston founded the Nevada Independent, a nonpartisan non-profit news and opinion website founded in 2017 after a career writing and comment.

[00:04:30] Jim Henson: On Nevada politics via several outlets and platforms, having on good authority. He’s the second best poker player in his family, . Um, so without further ado, I want to ask all of you to kind of orient us to your states by flagging for the audience, the marquee races, what’s going on in the big races. Give us a sense of where the dynamics in those races are right now.

[00:04:52] Jim Henson: And Greg, let’s start. So

[00:04:54] Greg Bluestein: I’m in Georgia. We like to thank all due respect to my colleagues here. We like to think Georgia’s the premier battleground [00:05:00] state in the nation, uh, thanks to the 11,000 or so vote margin between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in, uh, 2020 and the very close runoffs. Just a few weeks later, the flip control of the US Senate.

[00:05:12] Greg Bluestein: And right now Senator Arra Warnock, who, who narrowly, uh, won that Senate seat back in the runoff, has to run for a full six year term because that was the special election. We also have every statewide office is up for grabs, starting with, uh, the governor’s race and on down, um, Stacey Abrams rematch against Governor Brian Kemp.

[00:05:29] Greg Bluestein: And what we’re seeing right now in Georgia, one of the most interesting things is a split ticket dynamic. Um, Governor Kemp has a lead in pretty much every poll, but Senator Warnock Democrat is neck and neck with Herschel Walker, the former football star in our US Senate race. And that is because three four 5% of Brian Kemp voters are also backing.

[00:05:50] Greg Bluestein: Um, Senator Warnock. So we don’t see split tickets really anywhere, but, um, particularly in Georgia and we’re seeing that now.

[00:05:57] Jim Henson: Okay. So I wanna push you a little bit, cause I know other people are gonna want you from [00:06:00] their state because they’re all very proud reporters. I, you know, last election, very close, as you said, you’re a, you’re a swing state, but how permanent is this?

[00:06:10] Jim Henson: I mean, is this, I mean, do we think this is the beginning of something or do we, what’s the argument for it? Beginning being the beginning of something? What’s the argument for us seeing maybe the end of a glitchy period?

[00:06:19] Greg Bluestein: Yeah. The argument for this beginning, the beginning of something is a few numbers. 8, 5, 1 0.5, and then 0.1.

[00:06:29] Greg Bluestein: Republicans won by eight points back in 2014 and 2016 statewide elections. They won by, um, five Points. Uh, Donald Trump won by five points in 2016. Stacey Abrams lost a governor camp by 1.5 points in 2018, and then you had Democrats flipping the state by about 0.1% in 2020. And even if, even if the state becomes a, uh, you know, a seesaw, and even if Republicans win, um, both these seats that I just talked about in all the down ticket seats, um, Republicans and Democrats [00:07:00] alike consider Georgia in nationally and in Georgia, uh, Premier 2024 battleground.

[00:07:06] Greg Bluestein: So, um, It. I take, I take those cues in some part by the operatives who all say the same thing too, from both sides of the party.

[00:07:13] Jim Henson: Andy, what’s going on in your state in Ohio? I mean you, you got in your, in your state, the Senate race and the Governor race look pretty different, right?

[00:07:20] Andy Chow: Very different. And I would say that maybe Ohio and Georgia have flipped.

[00:07:24] Andy Chow: Where Georgia’s now one of the more battleground states in Ohio, which has been considered a swing state. generations is now becoming more and more red, and I think this next election is gonna really tell us if it was a fluke these past couple of years, maybe it was just a Donald Trump effect, or is it really gonna hold on.

[00:07:41] Andy Chow: Because we’re also seeing the same thing though, the governor’s race in Ohio. There’s a wide margin in the polls where the current governor, Mike DeWine is pulling really well against his opponent nwe, but the US Senate race is very close and we’re seeing the Democrats sort of take on two strategies. Uh, the [00:08:00] Democrats running for statewide offices like Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, they’re all running with the sort of the normal game plan that Democrats have used for the past couple of years that has proven not to work, but they’re kind of running with that strategy.

[00:08:12] Andy Chow: And then you have Tim Ryan who’s running as the Democratic nominee for the US Senate trying to appeal to Trump voters and trying to make himself sound like a Trump Democrat. And according to polling, it’s working. And so we’re seeing him polling within the margin of error while these other statewide races seem like the Republicans are running away with it, when

[00:08:30] Jim Henson: that strategy kind of underlines the change.

[00:08:32] Jim Henson: Right? I mean, you wouldn’t be doing that if. The, He wouldn’t be doing that if he wasn’t sensing that movement. Right.

[00:08:38] Andy Chow: And I think what we’ve seen in Ohio, there are certain regions which were like sort of blue collar labor union Democrats who flipped over to the Donald Trump’s side. The only Democrat in Ohio to have a proven record to win is Sharid Brown.

[00:08:51] Andy Chow: And so Tim Ryan is trying to become the the next shared brown and sort of appealing to those voters and trying to bring back who are now Trump voters who are once [00:09:00] Democratic voters. And we’ll see if it works.

[00:09:02] Jim Henson: Soja, before Greg got to the green room, we were talking about why Pennsylvania is really the most important state this election.

[00:09:08] Jim Henson: right? Tell us

[00:09:08] Angela Couloumbis: about it. Well, Greg, no offense, I’m just gonna read a couple of quotes and these are not my words. These were written by other largely national media that have come to Pennsylvania. Right. The center of the political universe, the center of political gravity. And lastly, every major American political trend that matters is unfolding right now in Pennsylvania.

[00:09:34] Angela Couloumbis: It’s pretty strong . Yeah. So, um, and, and, and obviously I’m sure this is not make me very popular in, in, uh, in Texas either, which is also a center of the universe, but, uh, in Pennsylvania we have two marque races. One is for the US Senate and it features Dr. Oz, who everybody knows. He’s a celebrity heart surgeon.

[00:09:56] Angela Couloumbis: He’s running as a Republican against the states [00:10:00] Democratic lieutenant governor. John Federman, who is, if anybody has ever seen him or heard him, he’s a very unconventional candidate. Um, and we can talk a little bit more about that later. Uh, and that race has been billed over and over again as being really important to the balance of power in, in the Senate.

[00:10:19] Angela Couloumbis: Um, but the second race, and I think in some respects a more important one, is the one for governor. It really is going to determine, uh, what kind of state Pennsylvania is going to be going forward. Um, is there going to be access to abortion? Is it going to be restricted? Uh, what kind of access to the polls are people going to have?

[00:10:43] Angela Couloumbis: Because it features, um, the Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who has a very long career in, in politics and, and a record that’s well known and well established. And he’s running against, um, a state senator. [00:11:00] Um, , Doug Riano, who is an election denier. He was endorsed by Donald Trump. Um, and I’m going to read one other thing because it was, it was written by the ap and it kind of sums up it perfectly, really, the, the importance of it.

[00:11:17] Angela Couloumbis: Um, they wrote that no g o p contender in talking about Mori did more to subvert the presidential election. And no one may be better positioned to subvert the next one than Mos Riano if he’s elected Governor.

[00:11:32] Jim Henson: You know, you said we get to it later, but let’s, let’s talk a little bit right now while we’ve got you on the subject about the Betterman Oz race, right?

[00:11:39] Jim Henson: Cause in some ways of all these races going on, there’s, you know, Take anything away from Riano, The personalities, a conflict between, and the not even personality, the persona conflict between Federman and Oz is really interesting. I think it’s got a lot of national attention. I’m curious what that looks like from your [00:12:00] perspective.

[00:12:00] Jim Henson: I mean, the sense recently to me looking at the polling and the national coverage is that Oz was kind of on the ropes. The National Republicans were worried about him. Maybe he’s closed a little bit and it does seem a little bit of an open question about what Betterman’s Health is like right on one hand to be fair and not make people angry.

[00:12:19] Jim Henson: You know, he can recover from the stroke, et cetera. But it’s obviously been a factor in terms of how people are thinking about the debate, their apparent resistance to debate even, you know, even those other explanations. Talk a little bit more, if you would, about what. What that looks like from the grand and what you’re hearing about that.

[00:12:36] Jim Henson: Yeah.

[00:12:36] Angela Couloumbis: So, uh, John Federman, for those who may not know, suffered a stroke, um, couple weeks before the May primary and, um, has since been recovering from it. But what that translated to was that he was unable to hit the campaign trail over the summer, and instead of being out and about in the summer, he ran [00:13:00] his campaign, ran this super sophisticated social media campaign that made him garnered him national headlines.

[00:13:08] Angela Couloumbis: Um, you know, it made the word Cru Toay popular again and, and like, you know, regular circles. Um, and it really sort of, uh, it, it really captured the fact that he’s got this kind of larger than life persona. Um, but Dr. Oz. In, in trying to navigate the, the absence of Federman on, uh, the campaign trail just really started to hammer him about his health, about him not being transparent about his health.

[00:13:42] Angela Couloumbis: And anybody who’s seen, Dr. Oz knows he’s super smooth speaker. He’s, um, very well practiced in front of cameras, almost like a salesman. Oh, totally. and, um, made a really big issue. And even though there is a long tradition in American politics about questioning people’s fitness [00:14:00] for office, um, , this went right up to the line, uh, potentially of, of, of hurting him.

[00:14:08] Angela Couloumbis: But it actually, uh, in, in some respects also helped in, in that it forced federman back onto the campaign trail so people can now see him and see how he’s doing, um,

[00:14:19] Jim Henson: physically. And it seemed like it changed the focus of the campaign, not only forcing him back on the trail, but. the median, you know, that the storylines, the coverage began to focus on that a little bit more, it seemed like.

[00:14:30] Jim Henson: Oh,

[00:14:31] Angela Couloumbis: oh, a hundred percent. That’s all it was about. There were, there was very little about issues.

[00:14:36] Jim Henson: So John, you have like a couple of really close top of the ballot races, right, in Nevada.

[00:14:41] Jon Ralston: So first, let me say that, um, uh, with the official concession speech tonight that Ohio was no longer a swing state , I, I do, I do think that there is very strong competition for second most important state between Georgia and Pennsylvania.

[00:14:55] Jon Ralston: So now let me, now let me tell you about the, now let me tell you about the most important [00:15:00] state and why it is. Uh, we do have very two very close races at the top of the ticket. One for Senate and one for governor. Um, they’re both within the margin of error. Uh, there was. Some evidence, uh, that they may be tilting a little bit right now towards the Republicans, but, uh, I, I, I’ve learned, uh, uh, after too many years of doing this, you don’t make pronouncements on September 24th about what, what, what, what’s, uh, going, going on.

[00:15:25] Jon Ralston: There’s a lot more, uh, uh, to be done there. There are, um, , the Senate race in, in Nevada, um, uh, is between, uh, Catherine Cortez Mato, who is a, a, a freshman elected in 2016 by only two and a half points. And, uh, Adam Laal, uh, whose grandfather, uh, was legendary figure in Nevada as a governor and then as a senator.

[00:15:49] Jon Ralston: Um, but, uh, and, and he would not even be anywhere in, in, without that last name. He actually didn’t grow up in Nevada. He moved to Nevada about 10 years ago, uh, and ran for [00:16:00] Attorney General and, and won in, in, in an incredibly close race. One of the biggest upsets in history, then ran for governor right away, lost in 2018, and then became the leader.

[00:16:10] Jon Ralston: Of the election denier movement on behalf of the Trump campaign in 2020, uh, he’s essentially hiding. Uh, Laal is as some other Republicans are across the country, doing only interviews with News Max and Tucker Carlson, and only with the, with the most softball of questions. But this is the kind of year, uh, in a purple state where the Democratic advantage that has existed for many, many cycles is now below 3%.

[00:16:38] Jon Ralston: There’s been a rise of independent registration. And so, uh, uh, that, that race is, is, is very close adds as the governor’s race between the Democratic incumbent. Both incumbents at the top of the ticket are Democrats, uh, uh, Steve Sla and Joel Lombardo, his, who is the sheriff of Clark County and his kind of a tabula rosa.

[00:16:57] Jon Ralston: Uh, and that’s been to his advantage in [00:17:00] many ways when you’re running Yes. Incumbent, covid, era, governor, et cetera. With all those issues, just to make the, the, the, we matter where most important, uh, to totally selfish case. All of our statewide offices are up, uh, as, as well. Um, a majority of them on the Republican side feature one strain of election denier or another.

[00:17:22] Jon Ralston: Um, and those races are competitive as well. And, and at, at some point, maybe we’ll talk about how important Secretary of States races have become, and, and the guy who’s running for Secretary of State Nevada, who has gotten a lot of national attention. And for all of the wrong reasons, 75% of our congressional races are also in play.

[00:17:41] Jon Ralston: Uh, and, and, uh, if you look at the list that, that inside elections that are, but they say there’s 20, 25, uh, races that are gonna determine, well, we have three of them. Um, and, and it’s mostly because of redistricting and re reapportion that was done that essentially. Uh, the Democrats had to move some Democrats out of a [00:18:00] very safe district to try to shore up to other ones.

[00:18:03] Jon Ralston: So now all three districts are in play. You know,

[00:18:06] Jim Henson: for those of us that have not followed Nevada super closely, stepped back and give us a little bit about the trajectory. So is this, have you guys had several competitive races in Rouge? You’ve got two Democratic incumbents. I’m wondering, tell us a little bit about what the, what the, the movement has been.

[00:18:22] Jim Henson: Over the last few elections,

[00:18:24] Jon Ralston: uh, it’s, it’s been rare for races in Nevada to, to, to, to not be close at the top of the ticket. A couple of times you have to go back to 2014 when, uh, as only can happen in Nevada. Uh, none of the above, which is, uh, uh, something people can choose on statewide races. Actually, one the Democratic primary.

[00:18:43] Jon Ralston: Uh, and that is really something though, the way the law reads is it has no teeth. So the second place finisher goes, but that was total unknown. And so he got crushed by, by the Republican incumbent, uh, in, in the room. But, but since then, the races have generally been pretty close and we’ve been [00:19:00] a, a, a purple state, uh, for, for quite some time.

[00:19:03] Jon Ralston: In fact, it looked like maybe we were gonna become a blue state after the 2016 cycle. But, uh, it, it, I think we’re firmly purple by the way. Uh, for 40 years after LBJ in presidential races, uh, was, was a red state. Uh, and then only, uh, when, when Obama won and then, and then Hillary and, and, and Obama won twice of course.

[00:19:25] Jon Ralston: And then, uh, a Hillary and Biden won. Have we become seen as more of a blue state than a red state in presidential races?

[00:19:33] Greg Bluestein: Does

[00:19:33] Jim Henson: that, does that feel a little premature to you? I mean, that’s what it sounds like you’re saying in other

[00:19:38] Jon Ralston: to say that we’re a blue state. Yeah. Uh, it, it does. Um, although just to have fun with all of my democratic friends, uh, after the 2016 landslide wins across the board, I declared us to be a blue state, which you would think the Republicans would be upset.

[00:19:52] Jon Ralston: The Democrats were upset because they, no one’s gonna give us any money now, and we’re, we’re gonna get no outside money if you say that we’re blue. And it was a facetious column, but, you [00:20:00] know, sometimes people take you seriously, uh, even when you’re trying to be facetious. But yeah, we’re, we’re a purple state now again, um, A, the, the Republicans think there’s going to be a big red wave.

[00:20:10] Jon Ralston: And I don’t just mean Republicans who just say that to say that. I mean some smart Republicans, uh, I, I, I talk to. But, uh, there, there are a lot of X factors out there, and we’ll probably talk about one of ’em, which is the Dobbs case, which is change the dynamic of some of these races.

[00:20:24] Andy Chow: I want, let’s say that the, the Republicans are feeling the same way in Ohio too, where they wouldn’t like hearing people say, Oh, it’s a red state now.

[00:20:32] Andy Chow: Right. Because they, they don’t want people to come become complacent, everything. Right,

[00:20:36] Jim Henson: Right. Well, I think, yeah, a lot of things have made it so that the parties don’t want you stepping on their fundraising space among other things. So let’s go in that direction. When we had talked about this a little bit, and we’ll come back to you Greg, um, Angela raised abortion.

[00:20:48] Jim Henson: Talk a little bit about the issue environment. Start with abortion, but I’m, I’m interested, I mean the national kind of overarching. You know, write down to, I think, political playbook this morning is that, you know, we’re [00:21:00] looking at, in most places some configuration of abortion, the economy, immigration, um, and then where you can rotate different issues in on the fourth side, like what’s taking pride of place.

[00:21:13] Jim Henson: And, you know, my view of this is typically the parties are trying to push different issues up front. Obviously in virtually everywhere abortion is to the Democrat’s advantage. Talk a little bit about what that looks like, what the mixture of those issues looks like in your, in your state.

[00:21:29] Greg Bluestein: Yeah. Like in other states, uh, Democrats hope abortion will be a game changer for their candidates, and they hope that because in part, they, they believe.

[00:21:39] Greg Bluestein: Georgia’s electorate’s, usually about 55% Women, they believe that polls like ours and other polls aren’t picking up on the likelihood that the electric could be 57% women, 58% women. And if that happens, it changes the entire dynamic in a close state like Georgia. In Georgia, we had Governor Brian Kemp when he ran for office in [00:22:00] 2018, promised to pass the toughest abortion restric.

[00:22:02] Greg Bluestein: In the nation. He didn’t quite do that, but he did, um, sign into law the next year in his huge national story as well as an enormous local story, uh, abortion restrictions that basically banned abortions as early as six weeks in most cases. And like many other measures that were passed in 2019, it was even the Republicans who supported that said, Hey, yeah, we’ll vote for it, but we never think it’s gonna go into effect.

[00:22:25] Greg Bluestein: And then lo and behold, three years later, it is now in effect Republicans in Georgia wanna talk about anything but abortion, just like probably in your states. Uh, Governor Kemp just had a big headline, uh, event with a very kind of far right Christian, uh, conservative group where he mentioned abortion once, right?

[00:22:43] Greg Bluestein: And then talked about foster care reforms and economic issues and things like that. He will talk about it if I ask him about it on the campaign trial if a reporter asks about it. But he will not go voluntarily speak about abortion related issues. Stacey Abrams, other Democrats, that is kind of the centerpiece of their [00:23:00] arguments.

[00:23:00] Greg Bluestein: They acknowledge. The same thing that polls show, which is the economy, inflation, cost of living is jobs. Those are the, that, that’s the, the prevailing factor, um, for voters. But in many polls, Abortion is two or three. And what democrats in Georgia and probably elsewhere are trying to do is tie those threads together.

[00:23:18] Greg Bluestein: So Stacey Abrams is out there saying, Governor Kemps anti-abortion laws and pro-gun policies are dissuading businesses from moving to Georgia. Uh, we had a concert that just got canceled called Music Midtown that usually attracts 50,000 or so people that got canceled because of, of Georgia’s permissive gun laws.

[00:23:36] Greg Bluestein: Uh, we’ve had other governors in North. Democrats, North Carolina and California and um, New Jersey all make appeals for Georgia businesses based on our anti-abortion restrictions. So that becomes part of her platform as well. I

[00:23:48] Jim Henson: thought you were gonna say they tried to get the music

[00:23:50] Greg Bluestein: festival. They did that too.

[00:23:51] Greg Bluestein: They did that too. The North Carolina government did.

[00:23:53] Andy Chow: It’s like that one line you just said was like the trifecta of those three issues bring

[00:23:57] Greg Bluestein: it all

[00:23:57] Jim Henson: together. So what does it look? Is it, is it, [00:24:00] is it the same ever? Does it look the same

[00:24:01] Greg Bluestein: in, in your

[00:24:02] Andy Chow: state? And it does. So I mean, if you were to ask any Democratic candidate in Ohio, they would say the top issue is abortion.

[00:24:08] Andy Chow: But again, with polling, it comes in about third. And so the question is, All right. What is driving people to the polls? Because historically in Ohio, the conservative voters, the Republican voters, they have, they have said in the past that they’ll vote for Republican candidates because of abortion. So what happens now that on that Republican side, it’s not on the table and on the democratic side, it’s the rights that are on the table.

[00:24:32] Andy Chow: And so that, that dynamic has completely shifted and you see a lot of people in the political world in Ohio really trying to figure out this new landscape, cuz everything’s just been shifted ever since the overturning of Roe. And so what you see now is again, trying to roll in the economy, roll in the issues of guns, same sort of things in Ohio, but then you also have the.

[00:24:56] Andy Chow: Danger for the Democrats is to maybe sort [00:25:00] of ignore other issues like trade deals, immigration, which immigration pulls very heavily in that border state of Ohio. And so , So you’ve, you’re very

[00:25:10] Jim Henson: close to Canada. Yeah, we’ve .

[00:25:13] Andy Chow: And so the, the other thing that kind of looms around is that the Republican party in Ohio is very much controlled by Trump Republicans.

[00:25:22] Andy Chow: And so whether they think that, whether the Republicans on the ground in Ohio think that they have a certain winning strategy, it’s all thrown out the window if the former president comes in and holds a rally and decides to say whatever he wants to say about things. And again, you see that shift again where somebody like JD Vance, who’s running as the Republican US Senate nominee, has to sort of fall in line with those talking points that he was trying to avoid.

[00:25:47] Andy Chow: So, like what Greg said, I was on the campaign trail with JD Vance. One or two weeks ago, he never once mentioned abortion, never once mentioned it, but then later that night at a rally in Youngstown, I’m [00:26:00] sure maybe you’ve seen this video of the rally in Youngstown, which we can get into, but then that

[00:26:06] Jim Henson: is, Yeah, just tell him about the rally in Youngstown.

[00:26:07] Jim Henson: Go for it. Uh,

[00:26:09] Andy Chow: it’s nuts. The rally in Youngstown was something, it was extreme and, uh, at the end, the, the, at the end Trump started, uh, giving this very bleak description of what the America looks like. And there was music playing underneath. And then everybody started to raise their hands in the air holding up a finger.

[00:26:29] Andy Chow: It was very, can I say creepy? I, I think it was very creepy. It was qan on, right? It was, it was so, so then the reporting later, cuz I wasn’t familiar with what this song was and everything, but later in some, some reporting, they said that the music was very similar to Qan on music that’s been used in their materials as well.

[00:26:45] Andy Chow: And again, so. You have these Republicans on the ground in Ohio sort of pushing out their own message, seemingly working, and then former President Trump comes in and sort of just shakes it all up and now you have the Republican sort of [00:27:00] scrambling to sort of spin it in their way and we’ll see if that works.

[00:27:03] Andy Chow: When

[00:27:04] Jim Henson: I was wondering, think, think, you know the one of those fourth rotating issues was Trump, So we were talking a little bit, it sounds similar but with a little bit of a twist in Pennsylvania, right, Angela?

[00:27:13] Angela Couloumbis: Yeah. So both Democratic candidates have made abortion a top issue. It has played out.

[00:27:20] Angela Couloumbis: Particularly, um, loudly in the governor’s race because in Pennsylvania currently there, uh, the rep, the legislature is controlled by Republicans and there is currently a Democratic governor who’s about to finish, um, uh, his term. And that governor has vetoed any, uh, abortion bill, uh, re any bill restricting abortion that has come to him.

[00:27:43] Angela Couloumbis: So the next governor of Pennsylvania is really viewed as kind of the person who will either block or, uh, permit legislation coming from the Republican controlled legislature. Uh, Regarding abortion. So that [00:28:00] is why that issue has been so heavily focused on by the Democratic governor. Um, in the US Senate race, it came up today, uh, John Federman was in Philadelphia, uh, for a rally, and he made it front and center, uh, uh, of his speech.

[00:28:16] Angela Couloumbis: But that race really hasn’t been, like I said before, it has not been super issue oriented up until now, but I I’m assuming that we’re gonna hear quite a bit

[00:28:25] Jim Henson: about it. So, so what are Republicans talking about? Are they. When they’re not talking about abortion, are they filling the space with the issues these guys were talking about?

[00:28:33] Jim Henson: More or less? Anything else, more locally kind of flavored? Yes.

[00:28:36] Angela Couloumbis: So the, the , so Doug Mori, who’s running for governor, has not really permitted, uh, press at his events, which really makes it very difficult for us to report on what he’s, you know, Talking about, but thankfully he does put it on Facebook Live so you can see it.

[00:28:55] Angela Couloumbis: Um, you know, he is, he is a candidate who does not run away from [00:29:00] his stance on abortion and his stance on abortion is, uh, banded at six weeks, no exception. Um, and he, on the campaign trail talks a lot about that. He talks a lot about, I mean, a lot of Trump talking points about making Pennsylvania great again.

[00:29:17] Angela Couloumbis: Um, but doesn’t really define what that means. And if you go to his website to try and get some insight to, into his policies, they’re not clear. They’re very broad. Um, but there is, uh, you know, one of his big issues is, uh, public education and moving money away from funding public education into, uh, basically giving pa parents money to send their kids wherever they want to send them.

[00:29:44] Jim Henson: You know, I’m curious, how does that poll in Pennsylvania? Cuz here it’s a. You know, I mean, and this is the way geographically Pennsylvania does strike me as potentially similar to Texas, where even though there that’s an intensely popular issue among some Republican [00:30:00] elites and opinion leaders, it actually doesn’t pull very, doesn’t work very well in rural Texas.

[00:30:05] Jim Henson: And so it’s a, it’s kind of a, it’s, it’s odd. It’s the perpetual issue that’s always kind of a loser and not a great campaign. ,

[00:30:13] Angela Couloumbis: Uh, no, it doesn’t pull very well in Pennsylvania either. But, you know, it polls very well with the wealthiest man in Pennsylvania who is a, a very big donor to campaigns. And so as a result, that issue has become front and center.

[00:30:28] Angela Couloumbis: And,

[00:30:29] Andy Chow: and we have this, a similar issue going on in Ohio in general, public wise, it doesn’t pull very well, but it pulls very well for evangelical voters and people who wanna send their vote, right? Their kids to private schools or to have school choice. And again, we have some well connected donors who are in that space too.

[00:30:45] Andy Chow: It’s really easy

[00:30:46] Jim Henson: to pull those six guys with billions of dollars. . I wish they would just ask us to pull them . Um, you know, I, it’s an, yeah, that’s an interesting dynamic. John, how about what’s the issue universe like in.

[00:30:57] Jon Ralston: So the abortion issue is front and center in [00:31:00] Nevada as well, in the center and gubernatorial races.

[00:31:02] Jon Ralston: But it’s different in Nevada for this reason in 1990. Uh, and yes, I was covering politics in Nevada in 1990. Uh, you were 12. Yes, exactly. Um, the pro-choice groups in Nevada put on the ballot a, a, a referendum to cement the pro-choice 24 week statute into law. Um, and if that were to, if that were to pass, that would mean that it could not be changed except by a referendum to repeal it.

[00:31:30] Jon Ralston: Um, it passed by two to one. Uh, it was overwhelming surprise a lot of people that Nevada turned out to be that much of a pro-choice state. Um, And that exists today. Of course, it has not been changed. And so what what is happening is, I mean, I get the feeling you could run into Senator Cortez Mato on the street and say, God, the Raiders are a disaster, aren’t they?

[00:31:52] Jon Ralston: And she would say, Did you know Adam La t Pro Life ? Um, that, that, that’s all that the, that she wants to talk about. Literally, [00:32:00] uh, that’s all now that Governor Steve Silak wants to talk about. I’ve mentioned how close those races are. So what the Republicans finally woke up and, and, and both of these campaigns are, , uh, Clacs campaign has done a much better, a lombardo’s campaign, excuse me, has done a much better job than lax salt’s campaign on this.

[00:32:18] Jon Ralston: But Lombardo, they both have ads on now about abortion, both Republican candidates and, and the one that, uh, lombardo’s is, is politicians are lying to you. They are saying that person can be elected and do something about abortion. Mm-hmm. , that’s not true. They’re lying. Don’t listen to me. It’s settled. Law.

[00:32:37] Jon Ralston: Uh,

[00:32:38] Jim Henson: vote for me. I’m powerless.

[00:32:39] Jon Ralston: Exactly. Something like, Don’t vote for me. I can’t do what I wanna do. And that you’re mad at me for. Um, um, Lael campaign has taken a slightly different t I don’t think their ad is good, but it’s, uh, You should be worried about gas prices and inflation and, and all these other things.

[00:32:58] Jon Ralston: Don’t worry about abortion. [00:33:00] It’s settled law and so nothing can happen. Lax salts, lax salt’s, permutations on this are just incredible. He, he got into politics as super pro-life, even when the state was, was, uh, pro-choice and the governor was pro-choice. He started filing amicus briefs in other state cases on the side of the pro-life forces, which the governor went crazy about and publicly spoke out fervently pro-life as you can.

[00:33:23] Jon Ralston: When he was asked about the referendum I referred to in 1990 during his governor’s race, he clearly, because as I mentioned before, hasn’t lived in this state and had no idea what the question was about. And just so just, uh, answer, we’re looking into overturning. That that’s on, that’s that’s on tape. And that that is, that is, uh, being used.

[00:33:41] Jon Ralston: But now, uh, suddenly he, uh, is against a federal ban on abortion. This is the most pro-life guy maybe who’s ever run for office. Nobody believes it in the know, but he’s trying to get the voters to say, Don’t worry if I’m, I wouldn’t. I would, if, if Adam lacks alt is elected, I will bet anyone here if he ever, that ever [00:34:00] comes up for a vote, that he will vote for it.

[00:34:02] Jon Ralston: When he’s was asked last week, uh, by several, uh, outlets about Lindsay Grahams, uh, uh, a bill, uh, they put out a statement. They, of course, they never make him available to answer this, uh, saying it can’t pass anyway. It’s not

[00:34:15] Jim Henson: relevant. And this was for most people in this audience probably know what we’re talking about.

[00:34:19] Jim Henson: This was Lindsey Graham’s proposal, which many of his Republican colleagues felt ambushed by the proposed a federal abortion allowing abortion up to 15 weeks, but with draconian penalties. And, you know, I mean, so it was a, it was a strange kind of play. , you know, made people, I think, hate Lucy Graham even more in the Senate, but I,

[00:34:38] Jon Ralston: but clearly the polling in Nevada shows for the Democrats that this is a way, uh, that they can drive base turnout, that they can get, uh, uh, more female turnout than, than previously has been foretold.

[00:34:51] Jon Ralston: Uh, uh, because every commercial that they have on now essentially is about abortion and it’s all they want to talk about. What really

[00:34:58] Greg Bluestein: surprised me in Georgia, by the [00:35:00] way, is while Governor Kemp, you know, when I asked him about that Lindsey Graham bill, he said, Oh, I’m not worried about Washington. Asked Herschel Walker about it.

[00:35:07] Greg Bluestein: Leaned into it, Yeah. Said, Hey, I believe in states’ rights, but I would a hundred percent support this federal ban. And in fact, he, you know, he said this multiple times, but he wants to ban all abortion, no exceptions for anything.

[00:35:20] Jim Henson: Yeah, I mean, I, I think there’s a lot of, they’re just generally scrambling on the Republican side, I think at this point, trying to figure out where to position themselves.

[00:35:27] Jim Henson: It’s interesting to hear that the different variance in, in your states on this. You know, I kind of wanna go back, just start back with you, John, and go back quickly. You know, you mention, a couple of you have mentioned this notion of how the Democrats in particular are depending or or banking on either increased turnout by women that you know will vote pro-choice on, or, you know, some variants of against the post stops abortion reality or, and or some increase in registration.

[00:35:58] Jim Henson: I’m curious, is there any [00:36:00] reliable registration data in your state at this point in the cycle that indicates that? Cuz that I find that looking for that data, Most of the claims that have been made on that are a little shaky. What does it look like at your, at the, in your states?

[00:36:15] Jon Ralston: Well, it, it’s pretty, that, that data is, uh, uh, uh, hard to find in the va.

[00:36:19] Jon Ralston: It’s, it’s opaque. The Secretary of State’s office just does not do that kind of deep dive. Unfortunately, the campaigns, uh, uh, uh, they, they, the Democrats say that yes, they’re seeing an upsurge, but I, I, I’m not sure that it, that it’s true. It does seem that the polling shows poll left or poll left, or poll and polling in Nevada, for those of you who don’t know, has been not notoriously bad for a variety of different reasons.

[00:36:44] Jon Ralston: That there is an uptick in abortion as being an issue that people care about and that they’re going to go to the polls to vote on, which is why these inoculation ads, uh, from the Republicans are on the air. Right.

[00:36:56] Angela Couloumbis: Yeah, it’s purely anecdotal at this point. Uh, you [00:37:00] know, we talk to a lot of groups that are on the ground that are trying to register people.

[00:37:05] Angela Couloumbis: Uh, it, when you’re talking to groups that are doing it in big urban centers like Philadelphia, like Pittsburgh, the anecdotal evidence is that they are getting a lot of young voters and a lot of female voters. Um, you know, that doesn’t though necessarily mean, cuz I know this is going going to be shocking to some people, but not every woman who registers to vote is going to is, is, uh, pro-abortion.

[00:37:30] Angela Couloumbis: And so it’s really hard just even with that anecdotal evidence, um, to get a true sense as to whether that is going to turn the tide, um, and, and for democratic candidates and whether it’s gonna resonate with, with voters newly registered voters.

[00:37:50] Jim Henson: Andy told me you have a completely transparent, Well, I was gonna say saying immediately.

[00:37:54] Jim Henson: Transparent voter registration system in Yeah. Ohio. And you can tell, you can answer this question

[00:37:59] Andy Chow: [00:38:00] for us. Well, I was gonna say, it’s interesting to hear that this is happening in other states. We should all share notes more often because this Yeah, I’m sorry Jim. It’s not the case. It’s the same thing.

[00:38:09] Andy Chow: Well, and so about a month ago, the Democrats for the Democratic, uh, gubernatorial candidate, Na Waley, they put out a press release and it said women are pissed and then they use these new voter registration. But no, I mean, I think that they don’t have those demographics. They can just show you that there’s an uptick in new registrations.

[00:38:29] Andy Chow: Maybe they have some data to show who was already registered. And so there’s something there, there’s a, there’s a hope that Ohio, if the Democrats are gonna start winning, they need to turn out more suburban voters, more like of those red suburban areas outside of the urban cores, which are blue. And they need to flip those suburbs blue.

[00:38:48] Andy Chow: And they believe that this uptick in voter registrations are coming from those areas. And so, but it’s a stretch. It’s kind of a Hail

[00:38:55] Jim Henson: Mary. Yeah. Suburban women is one of the most enduring election t tropes of [00:39:00] this

[00:39:00] Greg Bluestein: century. Yes. Right. But in Georgia, it, it’s a true trope. Right. Our suburbs, a true trop, a true trope.

[00:39:06] Greg Bluestein: Our suburbs flipped in 2016 for the first time since Jimmy Carter’s era, um, based on, uh, a surge of voting, but particularly among, um, suburban women. Um, we are the anomaly. We actually have that data. Uh, but the, the problem with that data is pretty much everyone who gets a license in Georgia, Registers to vote at the same time.

[00:39:26] Greg Bluestein: So we have 1.6 million newly registered voters since 2018. But just as you said, not, um, just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you’re necessarily against abortion. Just because you’re a registered voter doesn’t mean you vote, right? So it’s really hard to tell if this is going to change the electorate at all, because so many of those people will not vote.

[00:39:46] Greg Bluestein: But generally speaking, um, the 1.6 million, uh, this is sort of the democratic fantasy in Georgia right now. This is what’s keeping their hopes alive because those 1.6 million new voters tend to skew younger. Um, [00:40:00] they tend to meet, be living in the metro Atlanta suburbs that have turned blue. Some of them are transplants from other states that are blue.

[00:40:06] Greg Bluestein: Um, so they tend to be democratic leaning. But again, you gotta give

[00:40:10] Jim Henson: them to vote. And we should give a little bit of love to the can in case there’s a campaign consultant or two in the room. I mean, you know, people model this stuff. They extrapolate, they sell these models, people, but you know, They’re models.

[00:40:21] Jim Henson: They’re not, they’re not the

[00:40:22] Jon Ralston: actual data. Jim, let me, let me just give you one more piece of, uh, anecdotal as you were data on this in Nevada, uh, a few weeks ago. Uh, uh, Sarah Longwell, who’s the publisher of the Bull work, uh, who’s been doing focus groups across the country, did a couple of focus groups, uh, in, in the Nevada, and asked primarily about these, uh, two races.

[00:40:40] Jon Ralston: And I’ll just give you two data points, uh, from them. Every single person in each of these focus groups, there were eight people in, in one and nine in the other. When asked why they were not voting, uh, uh, uh, how they were gonna vote, these are by the way, democrats who were open to voting for Republicans.

[00:40:57] Jon Ralston: That’s how they were chosen. Every single [00:41:00] person was against Laal, every single person, and except for one or two, it was because of. That’s what, that’s, that was, uh, little different. And, and that’s why there’s some crossovers, just like in your state, uh, at the top of the ticket. I think there, there, there, there will be some Democratic Republicans splitting and what that percentage is could turn, turn the race.

[00:41:19] Jon Ralston: Not everyone was against Lombardo, but those who were not going to vote for Lombardo cited abortion. So the there, and again, focus groups aren’t determinative, you know, they’re not polls, but you can pick up trends from, from, from focus groups. And I found that to be significant.

[00:41:36] Jim Henson: Focus groups are the only thing that have people going, Hey, it’s not a poll.

[00:41:38] Jim Henson: Right, right. . Exactly. You know, I’ve, I’ve done both, you know. . Yeah. So, which makes me either probably a bad person. Um, , you know, I wanna, You were gonna jump in a minute

[00:41:49] Andy Chow: ago. Oh, I was gonna say, I, you made a good point about just because you’re a registered voter doesn’t mean that you’re gonna go vote. And there is, again, the anecdotal information and everything.

[00:41:57] Andy Chow: There was a correlation, there was a big uptick [00:42:00] in voter registration right after the Dobs case. So I think that’s another thing that the Democrats were pointing to as like, this is why.

[00:42:07] Jim Henson: Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s such a gray area. I mean, it’s not implausible what’s going on here, but we also know that we’ve really misjudged.

[00:42:17] Jim Henson: Trying to figure those things out a lot in the last few years. And you know, I think we should all be a little gun shy about that. I mean, skepticism is really in order even though, I mean, you know, it stands to reason, but the closer you look at the polling numbers, the less you see that abortion attitudes have moved.

[00:42:33] Jim Henson: And the salient readings that we get, at least here in some of the national stuff, shows that there’s still a fundamental problem that Democrats have that they can never, that they still haven’t gotten away from. Even as the parties have gotten more polarized, there’s still a lot more heterogeneity among Democrats in terms of what issues they see or they think are most important and, and abortion is now number one in most of the polling I see among Democrats.

[00:42:59] Jim Henson: But just to use [00:43:00] Texas, an example, and Texas. , slightly extreme example. You know, when we ask, when we ask what is the, either, either, what is the most important problem facing the state or what is on your mind going into the election? Number one issue among Republicans, not surprisingly, my old comad, Ross Ramsey and is here, we’ve been talking about this for a decade, immigration and border security.

[00:43:22] Jim Henson: You know, we were talking about gambling earlier. One thing I will gamble on is that immigration and border security is gonna be at about 50% among Republicans. This time, Democrats, abortion moved up to the top, but only among 20. But you know, 22, 20 5% of Democrats, they’ve just got all these other things going on among their constituents, and it makes it, it makes me skeptical.

[00:43:43] Jim Henson: what the mobilization potential and what the

[00:43:45] Jon Ralston: upside is. Well, but you know, the thing that’s changed too is that, well, first of all, one thing that hasn’t changed is by this point in an election, whether you consider it late or early, there is a lot that’s baked in and people are not gonna change their minds.

[00:43:58] Jon Ralston: And, and whether there was [00:44:00] 10% undecided, 15% whatever, whatever number and what, whatever state it is, a lot of that is baked in. What has changed since I first started covering politics in 1986 is the velocity with which information moves and the velocity with which the landscape can be changed. Uh, and so I still think there are things that could intercede.

[00:44:20] Jon Ralston: I, I don’t know what they are, whether it’s something, uh, uh, is something that occurs overseas. It’s something that occurs domestically that could affect these un, these undecided voters. I don’t, I think it’s gonna be hard to get a lot more new voters, uh, to, to, to come into play now that are gonna vote based on abortion.

[00:44:39] Jon Ralston: If they’re, if they, if they’re upset about the dobs decision, they’re probably already registered and they probably decided which way they’re gonna vote. But they’re, the, the, the way that social media works, uh, the, the upsurge now in digital advertising, which was not a thing, you know, way back in the day and how campaigns are skillful at using that when they use TOS now and they use [00:45:00] Instagram and all kinds of ways of delivering, cuz there has been an upsurge in youth registration.

[00:45:04] Jon Ralston: Um, but are they gonna vote? You know, the Democrats think that’s great, but is is, is it some of these Republican campaigns are really sophisticated in how they’re trying to appeal to the youth vote. So I just think, I think while there’s a lot that’s baked in now, I still think that they’re, something could happen to affect

[00:45:20] Jim Henson: these undecided, basically, you know, to, in the artless language of, of the social sciences, you know, all that, all those forces of stability are there.

[00:45:29] Jim Henson: But what we’ve seen in the last few political cycles, much higher incidents of what we call exogenous shocks, just, you know, Could for regular people, shit happens. Big shit. Right.

[00:45:41] Jon Ralston: Jim? Come, Jim Comey or Access Hollywood takes Exactly. Happens. Supposed they change everything. Super.

[00:45:46] Jim Henson: Or, or in a more doer sense, you know, in Texas mass shootings or Right.

[00:45:50] Jim Henson: Sure. Big foreign crises. Right. Greg, go ahead and, but I’m also gonna tell you what I want to do so that maybe you can do this. Like, so we’re gonna run out of time. I want to have people start to line up. Make your [00:46:00] comment and then a lightning round. What, what’d you wanna say about your state that we haven’t gotten to?

[00:46:03] Jim Henson: I was gonna say,

[00:46:04] Greg Bluestein: what, when you mentioned TikTok can, John Ossoff was the first, maybe first TikTok candidate, and he was all over TikTok. He, all these memes I didn’t remotely understand and, and my kids did my 11 year old, but I asked him, I was, What, how do you, how did you follow this? He goes, Bluestein, I didn’t, I just gave it to a staffer.

[00:46:21] Greg Bluestein: He did everything and he raised all sorts of money off of it. So, um, but no, the one point I would make too is, the other fundamental problem Democrats have is Joe Biden, and it, we, it sounds weird in a state like Georgia and Pennsylvania, both those states put Biden over the top. It, it just, two years ago.

[00:46:37] Greg Bluestein: His approval ratings are, our latest poll is 37%. Every other poll has him at high thirties, low forties. We’re seeing Democrats treat that very differently. Stacey Abrams can’t run away from him. She tried to be his running mate. She takes credit for orchestrating the blueprint that led to his victory in Georgia.

[00:46:52] Greg Bluestein: So she’s, he can campaign down here. I support his policies. Senator Warnock, he talks more about working with Ted Cruz than he does with I’m that [00:47:00] kid, and he talks more about working with Ted Cruz on the highway bill that would stretch from Texas all the way to Georgia than he does about, uh, working with Joe Biden.

[00:47:07] Greg Bluestein: That’s

[00:47:07] Jim Henson: a real argument that your state is important and competitive and maybe a little weird . Yeah,

[00:47:13] Andy Chow: I know all eyes are on the US House. Are the Republicans gonna flip it when you’re watching these races during the midterms? Just remember that Ohio’s Congressional. Are gerrymandered. They are gerrymandered.

[00:47:23] Andy Chow: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that they have violated the state constitution yet because of all this infighting, the Republicans want a federal case. And so these maps that are gonna be used, it gives republicans a bigger advantage than they’re supposed to have based on the state constitution. And that could be really big when it comes to tipping the scales for Republicans where you sh you could have and should have, based on the state constitution, you would’ve seen the Democrats have five seats, basically gain a seat in Ohio, but you could see them lose two seats instead.

[00:47:54] Jim Henson: That’s a great pro tip. So when, if you’re wa, you know, most of these people will be doing this. So when you’re watching MSNBC or [00:48:00] CNN and they’re up there and they go to Ohio Congressional races, you know, you can go to the bathroom and grow up something to drink or . Yeah. .

[00:48:06] Angela Couloumbis: Yeah. I mean, as important as the governor’s races and as the US Senate races in Pennsylvania, um, equally as important and sort of a sleeper type of issue is, um, all of these legislative races that we have going on.

[00:48:21] Angela Couloumbis: Um, the first such races after, uh, the redistricting that occurred, um, which was really painful and full of lawsuits in Pennsylvania. Um, but for the first time has created, um, at least potentially more equal districts, um, and what the impact is going to be on the makeup of the state legislature going forward, which can be as equally as important as, as, uh, who is in the governor’s.

[00:48:52] Jon Ralston: So I alluded to this earlier, um, Jim, across the country, Secretary of States races, uh, no, no one pays attention to ’em. They’re not that [00:49:00] important. They’re critically important. We know this from Georgia. Uh, uh, uh, for instance, uh, in, in, uh, the last election in 2020, the Secretary of State was a Republican, so only statewide office holder, who was a Republican.

[00:49:13] Jon Ralston: And she was stood immense pressure from Adam Laal and others in the Republican Party to say that Joe Biden’s 33,000 vote victory was not valid for a variety of reasons. Uh, and she made some fairly strong statements saying there was not widespread fraud. Uh, there’s no evidence of it. Secretary of State’s office, like all the statewide offices are up this time.

[00:49:35] Jon Ralston: She’s term limited, so she’s not running. The person who’s running for Secretary of State is a person who is a QAN on guy who is a Mike Linde, you know, Acolyte who has said. For instance, that no one has really been elected in two thousands, 2006, um, in, in, in Nevada, that it’s all been fixed. There’s an algorithm or some such nonsense.

[00:49:58] Jon Ralston: And, and you know, I’ve been [00:50:00] pretty good at predicting elections. I probably shouldn’t say that. I’m the one controlling them. But, but having, having said that, John Q

[00:50:06] Jim Henson: Rolston,

[00:50:07] Jon Ralston: he’s in every, he, he, he is ahead in every poll, um, by a few, by a few points. Um, uh, about about a third, uh, are undecided cause no one pays attention.

[00:50:19] Jon Ralston: Those focus groups, I conclude with this. So you know how scary it is. They were. Both focus groups were asked about Secretary of State’s race. Not one person knew what the Secretary of State did. Not one person knew who the candidates for Secretary of State are. This, this is frightening stuff. Uh, and, and, and it could affect 2024 in a very adverse way in a lot of different states, uh, if, if an election deny or conspiracy theorist is

[00:50:43] Jim Henson: elected.

[00:50:44] Jim Henson: I wanna follow up on that. Is there any effort, Are you guys seeing any national money flowing into that race to try to affect that?

[00:50:50] Jon Ralston: Uh, not much. Not enough. Uh, and, and the person was running against, uh, this Republican is very well liked lawyer, uh, got the supported Democratic [00:51:00] establishment, has raised a ton of money, both in state and outta state because of, of this.

[00:51:06] Jon Ralston: And I don’t know what the hell he’s doing. And, and so, uh, I don’t know what the strategy is, but, uh, they better get out there pretty. , Can

[00:51:13] Angela Couloumbis: I just add one thing to

[00:51:14] Jim Henson: Yeah, yeah, please. I was gonna follow up on that Secretary of State thing.

[00:51:17] Angela Couloumbis: So go ahead. Okay. So in Pennsylvania, the governor is the, the Secretary of State is not elected.

[00:51:23] Angela Couloumbis: The governor appoints that person. Uh, and that issue too has become a really big one in the governor’s race because Doug Mori, who’s running as a Republican, uh, has said that if he gets elected governor, he’s going to get somebody in there who’s going to be like-minded. And aside from that, he’s going to make every single registered voter reregister, um, to vote in violation of all kinds of state and federal laws.

[00:51:55] Angela Couloumbis: So, I mean, those races are so important and I, I am [00:52:00] amazed that, you know, post 2020, that those elections aren’t front and center. Right. You know, under the

[00:52:08] Jim Henson: spotlight. Right. It’s, it’s a hard thing to make happen with the public quickly, I think.

[00:52:12] Andy Chow: Secretary of State. So we have a Republican incumbent who’s running again, and, uh, Trump won Ohio, so there’s not as much heat on Ohio.

[00:52:21] Andy Chow: Um, but we also have somebody who’s running as an independent, who is a podcaster, a big Q Andon person. She once was at a Trump rally, held up a laptop and said it was Hunter Biden’s laptop. So, um, she’s running as an independent. So we have this Republican incumbent who’s more of a moderate, who’s been trying to fight off this, uh, run from the right, and she’s been just led onto the ballot as an

[00:52:43] Greg Bluestein: independent and we’re the home of maybe the most famous secretary of state in the nation.

[00:52:46] Greg Bluestein: Brad Raven Booker, who was a back bench Republican, kind of nobody lawmaker, ran in a very competitive Republican primary back in 2018. Um, everyone thought another conservative activist would win, who was a state senator. [00:53:00] Um, but Brad waited till the very end poured money. He, he’s what? Very wealthy, uh, poured his own money into the race, wins the primary kind of was very qu I mean, Didn’t run a, a, a very aggressive campaign at all and was kind of an afterthought, um, until, in a sense, until 2020.

[00:53:19] Greg Bluestein: All that unpleasantness, all that unpleasantness when he famously stood up the Donald Trump’s demand to find enough votes to turn, overturn the election three days before the January 5th runoff. And, you know, within. Within a week of the, of the November election back in 2020, the entire Republican establishment, except for the governor, but most of the rest of them, including our two incumbent senators at the time, Kelly, ER and David Perue, all called for Brad Rasen Berger to step down the entire Trump apparatus was going against him, pressuring him.

[00:53:49] Greg Bluestein: Um, our house speaker and lieutenant governor were getting phone calls from Trump and his all. Urging them to call a special session. The governor, of course, was getting the same pressure. Um, and [00:54:00] if you had, if I had to bet a year ago that Brad Berger had his political fate, I would’ve thought he wouldn’t even qualify to run for office.

[00:54:07] Greg Bluestein: I thought he was just a sitting duck. I didn’t think he had any chance. Not only did he qualify, he beat Jody. Hes a congressman who was among the same lines as your, as your, um, uh, nominees, um, who said he would’ve have, uh, confirmed Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 and bought and propagated all the Trump lies about election fraud.

[00:54:27] Greg Bluestein: Um, he handedly defeated him and every other GN incumbent who was faced a Trump back challenger in Georgia, all also handedly defeated their, uh, Trump back challengers. But the weird caveat to that is they’re not anti-Trump. These are not just like in so many other states. Even the Republicans who stood up the Trump still won’t say a bad

[00:54:46] Jim Henson: word about it.

[00:54:47] Jim Henson: It, it’s, Trump is a very difficult friend. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, let’s go to the question.

[00:54:54] Audience Member: Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. Uh, I’ve worked, uh, campaigns since [00:55:00] 1984, and I cannot recall an election cycle this close, this far along when there were so many Senate races within the margin of error in all of that time.

[00:55:11] Audience Member: And I, I, I, I follow polling very closely and they all show consistently, uh, somewhere around 30 to 35% Republican, 30 to 35% independent, 40% ish Democrat. How is it two questions. How is it that we have come to being so evenly split at almost 50%? Where is that split coming? Is it from the independents who aren’t really independent?

[00:55:41] Audience Member: And also what, what sort of macro trends do you see coming out of this that could be played out in 2024?

[00:55:51] Greg Bluestein: When you go first in Georgia, a generic Republican, at least poll show, a generic Republican would probably be Senator Warnock, um, [00:56:00] despite, you know, all his talents and, but Herschel Walker is not a generic Republican.

[00:56:04] Greg Bluestein: And um, and also Senator Warnock is not a generic Democrat. He’s such a, uh, he is just, as I said earlier, he has kind of had that maverick sort of, um, unique, uh, strategy to attract independent voters. He’s running a very smart campaign. Um, and Herschel Walker with his blunders, his lies, his past history of violent, erratic behavior, all these issues that are now front and center in Georgia, we’ve been covering them for a year and a half, but now campaigns are spending multimillion dollar budgets on TV has changed the dynamic.

[00:56:34] Greg Bluestein: So, um, that, I guess, I guess that’s my answer to why things are so close in Georgia because if, if it was a generic Democrat versus generic Republican, it might not be this close at all

[00:56:45] Andy Chow: since 2016, I’ve always wondered if. If it’s Trump, who gets people to vote for Trump, or if it can be anybody who emulates Trump.

[00:56:55] Andy Chow: So is it only Donald Trump that can get a certain amount of voters to vote for him in Ohio [00:57:00] or can it be somebody who’s pretending and and replicating him? And what we’ve seen in Ohio is that you can’t just be like a co carbon copy of Trump. You have to be your own person. And so if Trump were to run in Ohio, it’d be easy.

[00:57:15] Andy Chow: Other Republicans who try to pretend to be like him, it’s not so easy. And we’re seeing that with JD Vance right now cuz he tried to be just a carbon copy. And I think that’s where you’re seeing this identity crisis in Ohio, where Trump was able to flip very specific regions. Again, these blue collar labor union Democrats in the Mahoney Valley where Youngstown is in Dayton and.

[00:57:35] Andy Chow: You see these Republicans trying to regain that strategy somehow, and it has worked in the past, it might not. And I think for some reason it’s only in these Senate races because again, with our statewide races, the governor and down the Republicans are winning easily. So I don’t know if when voters go to the polls, they’re thinking of Ohio as one thing and Congress has another.

[00:57:59] Andy Chow: That’d be nice if [00:58:00] they were thinking that deeply about it. But I, I think that maybe is where it’s concern too, is that maybe they’re really specifically thinking about Trump when they’re voting in the US Senate race and maybe they’re thinking about other things when they’re looking at these other races.

[00:58:15] Angela Couloumbis: Yeah, really it’s a combination of what they said here, because in Pennsylvania, Democrats, uh, in terms of registration numbers, um, have an edge over Republicans, right? So, um, What happened in 2016? Was that the entire, You know, it used to be, The thought was that in order to win Pennsylvania, a statewide election in Pennsylvania, you had to win big in the Philadelphia suburbs, which tended to trend, um, moderate Republican, well, that, that whole scenario flipped in 2016 and has remained that way, uh, since then.

[00:58:57] Angela Couloumbis: And it’s complicated because in Pennsylvania, in [00:59:00] primaries, independence are not allowed to vote. So you get the most extreme candidates or the most, uh, you know, on both sides if you’d like. And they do well in the, in the primaries. And then when it comes down to the general election, these candidates no longer fit the mold of, uh, winning, you know, certain areas of estate.

[00:59:23] Angela Couloumbis: And the, the best example of that is the current, um, the, the person running for governor in, in Pennsylvania, Doug Masano. Uh, we’ve talked to a lot of Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs who just say, I can’t vote for him. He’s not my brand of Republican. Um, And so maybe I’ll set it out and maybe I’ll hold my nose and vote for the Democrat.

[00:59:45] Angela Couloumbis: And it’s the same thing that you were saying in, in, in, uh, you know, up in the northeastern part of the state, which used to be, you know, it’s white work, primarily white working class used to vote Democrat, but that it region went really [01:00:00] hard for Trump. So it’s just, it’s, it’s a combination of, you know, the type of candidates who are not, you know, the candidates that the pre 2016 candidates as I like to call them.

[01:00:11] Angela Couloumbis: Um, and, and, and just the, um, the, in Pennsylvania, the inability to really, um, get independence more into the mix in choosing those candidates for the general.

[01:00:25] Jon Ralston: You’re really determined to have Mao be the craziest candidate we talk about. No, no matter what everyone else, I don’t think he is though. Is that right?

[01:00:32] Jon Ralston: Oh my God. That’s even scarier if he, if he doesn’t, You’re Secretary of State. I don’t. Well, I’m at, I at a major race. Oh no. No one’s crazier than Jim Marshant in Nevada. . Um, so. It generally, as I said earlier, than the major races governor Senate when they’re up in Nevada, those, they’re generally won by moderates.

[01:00:50] Jon Ralston: Uh, Nevada has been a purple state for some time. Democrats have had a slight advantage, but extreme candidates on either side generally have not won. If they have [01:01:00] been the nominee of the party, the independent vote. Varied, um, from from election to election, generally based on which party is doing well or which issues are prominent.

[01:01:11] Jon Ralston: It’s a real wild card this time, more than it’s ever been, and I’ll tell you why. For the first time since I’ve covered politics in Nevada, independent or non major party voters are their plurality. They have more, uh, registered voters now than Democrats or Republicans. But, and, and Greg alluded to this earlier, the reason that that’s occurred, the main reason is they passed a motor voter law a couple sessions ago.

[01:01:35] Jon Ralston: So if you don’t register there, they default you to nonpartisan. So there’s been this explosion of nonpartisan. But how many of them are going to vote? How many of them even realize they’ve been registered to vote? And the party and the campaigns that are smart enough? Because Mark Melman, the Democratic pollster once said to me, There’s no such thing as an independent John.

[01:01:57] Jon Ralston: There’s something else. And they’re hiding behind being an [01:02:00] independent. Which parties, which campaigns are skillful enough to find out who these new independent voters are and which ones they wanna turn out are, are, are the ones who will win elections. And it’s very difficult, especially for a guy who likes to predict election results, to figure this stuff

[01:02:15] Jim Henson: out.

[01:02:16] Jim Henson: Yeah. That independent factor is, is really important. Like I, you know what, I have a lot of thoughts on. We’re out of time. I’m gonna land this baby. John Roston. Angel Columbus, Andy Chow, Greg Bluestein. You know what? This was the most important panel of the conference. Give him a hand. I agree. Thank you guys.

[01:02:36] Jim Henson: It was great. Thank you. All right. That was still fun the second time around. I hope you enjoyed it. As you follow the 22 national election, I, I urge you to follow Angela, Andy, Greg, and John on Twitter, and to read their work on the web. They’re obviously great reporters that have a real deep understanding of what’s going on in these crucial states.

[01:02:58] Jim Henson: If you’re listening via one of the [01:03:00] streaming services that carry this podcast, um, you’ll find social media links for these guests linked to their bios and their work, and even a photo, a photo of what the event looked like in a blog post at the Texas Politics Project website. And that’s at Texas politics dot u texas.edu.

[01:03:19] Jim Henson: Just follow the link through the polling section to the blog. You gotta click a couple times, but it’s not that hard to find. Uh, I want to thank them again for such a memorable and, and very fun. Uh, and thanks to our friends at the Texas Tribune for providing the audio file from the panel and more largely for organizing another great Texas Tribune festival in, in Austin.

[01:03:42] Jim Henson: They’d generated a lot of news that you’ve probably heard read about elsewhere, uh, over the weekend. Among those friends who help us, I want to give a special shout out to Natalie Chote, who is the Chief Communications Officer at the Texas Tribune, a UT Austin graduate, and in particular, an alumnus [01:04:00] of the government department and the government department internship graduate, uh, uh, internship program.

[01:04:06] Jim Henson: And thanks as always to the excellent professional and student staff in the audio studio and the liberal arts dev studio at UT Austin who worked on short notice to put the podcast together. We had to do some sewing together to, to make this happen. You all are just great. Thanks guys, and thanks to all of you for listening and we’ll be back soon with another second reading podcast.

[01:04:31] Jim Henson: The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.