Last Call for Takes!

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1:11Crooked Con is coming up right after the election, and we have just added a bunch more great names to the lineup. We got Governor J.B. Pritzker coming, Senator Chris Murphy, and then over from the House side, Ilhan Omar, Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride. We also have carlos eduardo espina simone sanders townsend eugene daniels david packman jessica tarloff heather mcgee and then all the other people that we've announced on the website plus more to come great list check out the full lineup and get tickets right now at crookedcon.com we'd love to see you there that's crookedcon.com this is matt rogers from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang this is bowen yang from las East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

1:45This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Okay, we've been talking about Kewpie Mayo for a minute now, Bow. And wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love Kewpie. 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 and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know it, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo. Well, the answer, egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles.

2:27Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, Kewpie it. So if you haven't tried Kewpie yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Vitor. On today's show, the midterms are finally here. And the final round of Time Sienna polls show what the averages have been saying all fall. Democrats have a great chance of retaking the Senate and an even better chance of taking the House. We'll go through the final state of play, state by state, and the message that Donald Trump is using to try to blunt

3:29that momentum. What could it be? Before we get to all that, quick reminder to join Alex Wagner tonight for a live stream of election results and analysis. The stream starts at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific on the Pod Save America YouTube channel. She'll have lots of great guests from the network and beyond, including us, right after we get back from doing Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight. So check that out, too, if you'd like. And then we'll be recording a bonus episode tonight when we have a handle on all the results. Dan will be here, too. So look for that in your feed tomorrow. Also, if you haven't yet grabbed your tickets for CrookedCon this Saturday, today and tomorrow only, we're having a flash sale.

4:08It's a flash sale. $30 off your ticket with code CCMIDTERMS26. CCMIDTERMS26. That's CCMIDTERMS26. CrookedConMidterms26. You got it. You figured it out. Sure. It's in the episode description as well. This flash sale ends Thursday and it's the last chance for discounted tickets. What's a flash sale? Is it just a limited time? Yeah, it's a boom. We're set. It's on sale. Yeah, it's happening. Flash. Flash. And Hayley Stevens is now coming, so that's exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Headliner. Yeah. She's going to be there. She's going to moderate a panel. Crookedcon.com to get yours and see if Lovett's joking or not. See you this weekend in D.C. All right. The day has arrived. Our last show before polls close in the final midterm election of the Trump era in American politics.

4:58No president since Harry Truman has been this unpopular heading into election day. He got us into a war that spiked gas prices to record highs, imposed crushing tariffs on everyone, deployed paramilitary squads to terrorize communities, made billions of dollars for himself and his friends, put states into play that Democrats haven't won in decades. And on Monday, he delivered one final pitch at the Lincoln Memorial to Americans who still haven't made up their minds about whether to keep Republicans in control of Washington for two more years. Tremendous algae problems. And you have that picture with the algae. It's not an easy thing. The algae is brutal. Green, that's not grass, that's algae that took over the entire pool.

5:40The pipes, the pipes now are totally renovated. They have brand new pipes put in. It's also something very important in terms of the algae. It creates the bubbles and creates what's necessary that the algae doesn't form. We fixed the granite. We re-caulked it. All of this has been re-caulked. The granite stone is so strong. It literally has thousands of years of life. The grass in front of the White House was a very inferior grass for many, many years. And that's a big deal, regressing. The sitting president doesn't win the midterms, but we gave this a very strong shot. I mean, if we fucking, if we don't win this one, fucking pack it in, guys. Pack it in. He's talking about sod. It was like a Resistance Lib joke came to life.

6:29Like my jaw dropped watching this. We were stunned. They brought the charts out. Like couldn't believe this was actually happening. Takes a lot to surprise us 10 years into this bullshit. Yes. But we were watching it live on Fox, our favorite channel, with the chyron said like, President speaks one day before critical midterms. Guys, he literally said in his remarks we have a lot of great things planned for the nation and we could get into that but we don't have enough time he don't have enough time sir now is the time because there's a lot of grass talk about a lot of algae after like what like 30 or 40 minutes on uh reno he then did a kind of sad they're gonna trans your children sad kind of low energy communist jihadist kind of sad. They're going to trans your children. Sad kind of low

7:06energy. Communist, jihadist kind of stuff. Right. And he did it with a mic in front of his face like this and a hat pulled down really low so you couldn't even see him. His heart wasn't in it. But he also doesn't seem down oddly enough for thinking that he may lose the midterms as he said there and looking at all the polls. He kind of just seems like, look, I'm here. This is what I care about. I'm trying to keep my moods lifted. Right. Yeah, he's heard that Americans are angry about all these construction projects. And he thinks it's because of anger at them not going well enough, as opposed to, say, the incorrect focus. Yeah, they don't know enough about the successes. Yeah, once they hear about what the bubbler's been up to.

7:44You think that's it? And the challenging sod conditions we were working under. It's very hard to regress. Very challenging. I think he just doesn't give a shit. I think he doesn't give a shit either. It's also like, it really is a story about how his staff now has no control over him. I talked to Ram for like three minutes today. Like I have one of those two minute Ram phone calls. And he was like, if you came into my office and pitched me on a day before the midterms event about the renovations at the reflecting pool, I would have ripped your arm off and thrown you out of the office. It's insane. I think he wouldn't have even done that at first because he would have laughed at you and thought it was like a practical joke that you like a prank that you guys would throw me in the fire.

8:19Did he do a follow up thing on the arch afterwards? Well, everyone cut away. So we cut away because we're like, I guess that's it. And then then because then doug bergham got up and spoke and then i guess he came back to talk about the arch he came back after i i would they they cut away when i was watching after because i was i was literally he had to get to all of his tele rallies uh donald trump he's doing a lot of tele rallies today i was at the dentist and my deal and i was like oh i i got to prepare for the pod and so i can so i don't have to do the odd conversation while you're on the dentist chair so i so I was watching from my dentist chair. So I've evolved on this. I'm now fully headphones in

8:49like noise cancellation, listening to something. Because first of all, I get huge anxiety at the dentist and it's also you can't talk to them anyway. They try to talk to you. Yeah, I know. I know. Anyway, we're like Trump just talking about the dentist here on election day. In addition to all of Trump's governing fuck-ups, did you guys see that Semaphore put. In addition to all of Trump's governing fuck ups, did you guys see that Semaphore put together a great roundup of Trump's political fuck ups? Yes. That almost single handedly put the Senate in play. And which do you think were the most consequential? Great list. Yeah. So I think unforced error list. Number one, I would say, is going to war with Iran. That's probably just

9:25yeah, we have all the governing ones. Right. But it's tough category. I think Paxton over Cornyn is probably the cleanest because it just absolutely put I mean, who knows what the actual race would be now if it were Cornyn versus Tallarico, but totally changed the dynamic. And they were saying even before Paxton was the nominee, their best case scenario was nominating Paxton. A win would require at least another $100 million. So that was the handicap before they even went through with it. So I'd say that. Maybe second being for inexplicably deciding that Darlene Graham shouldn't just be the interim senator, but should also go for the full term. That certainly put South Carolina on the net. It's crazy. I think those are better choices and more accurate choices i really like pushing this

10:09idea that choosing jd van to a historic mistake yeah you're same way to put ohio on the ballot in 26 and if he hadn't done that if i hadn't chosen jd you could imagine trump getting mad about this and ranting about how if i hadn't chosen jd things would be different. Yeah, because JD would still be, you know, senator from Ohio. Really annoying senator. There wouldn't be a race there. I also, I hadn't thought about Tillis either. Yeah. Pushing Tillis. Now, look, I think- And camp bowing out. I think Roy Cooper versus Tillis, I still would give that in this environment to Cooper, but certainly didn't help. But we're spending in that scenario, right? We're spending tens of millions of dollars.

10:49Like there's all this effort going into North Carolina and the party kind of walked away from it months ago. And Kemp is kind of a double there, right? Because if Trump wasn't president or Trump didn't hate Kemp, maybe Kemp would have run for Senate. And that probably would have given Ossoff the toughest race. But then Kemp had a guy, this guy Dooley, that he wanted to run against Ossoff. Trump took that guy out with Mike Collins, the bigot. And so, yeah, there goes Georgia. So that's what – so Trump really helped put the Senate in play. So we'll see how that worked out for him. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I think it's worth talking about what's next for Trump after Tuesday. Lots of reporting the last few days that Netanyahu is pressuring Trump to start striking Iran again as soon as this week.

11:37Trump kind of sort of maybe threw some cold water on that to reporters today. But he kind of he was like, no, not right afterwards. I'm not going to. But maybe who knows like his usual shit um there was also some wild by wild i mean terrifying reporting from tucker carlson who cited anonymous sources close to trump saying that the president may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on iran's pickaxe mountain um where quote israeli intelligence claims the iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. Tommy, what do you think of Tucker's very long post? It was a very long post. It's always interesting when people write like the op-ed tweets. It's like, huh. He doesn't do that often either.

12:16He doesn't tweet a lot anyway. Yeah. So the Iranians just floated a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz that included some things like lifting sanctions and billions in frozen asset relief that make it hard for me to imagine that Trump would take a deal. So I think renewed conflict is more likely than not. Pickaxe Mountain is more likely than not to be a target because it is the place you hear the neocons kind of froth in the mouth about because of potentially including a new nuclear site. I personally think the nuclear weapons part is made up. It doesn't make sense really militarily or strategically. I think this could be some Gulf source, like someone in Qatar or UAE or whatever talking to Tucker and trying to spin

12:55him up. There were other reports that Trump might want to drop something called the MOAB, the mother of all bombs on pickaxe. That's a really big bomb. It's a conventional weapon, but it weighs like 21,000 pounds. That option makes sense because it would have no strategic impact, but it would be a thing Trump would like to talk about. It's kind of the perfect world for him. But the whole thing was weird. I mean, the war is not over. Iran attacked 35 ships in October alone. The Journal had a great piece over the weekend about the escort mission. It requires 50,000 US troops, 20 Navy ships, two carrier strike groups, an additional two to three billion dollars a month above normal military spending. In perpetuity. In perpetuity to keep it open.

13:35The other thing about the Tucker post, it said Obama opposes a deal, which I don't buy the sourcing there, but also that could be someone said to me, what if that's just a genius way for Tucker to try to get Trump to like the deal? If Obama- That would be some real chess from Tucker Carlson there. It does seem like no matter what happens in the elections, all Trump has is foreign policy stuff like this and renos, home renos. I'd rather we do the renos i've heard the regime change abroad renovations at home i've heard that rubio besant and ratcliffe kind of want to keep the economic pressure on and stay the course that vance and wickoff want a deal and so the gulf i'm sure vance does oh absolutely yeah excuse me i'm gonna be running for president in this yeah and then

14:20you'll never guess who really wants to run it back and do war 2.0. Pete Hexeth, of course. And I think Trump is leaning that way because I think he doesn't care about politics. I mean, look, like we said at the top, the ballroom press events to close out the midterms shows he doesn't care about politics anymore. I think he just wants to show that he can dominate the Iranians and will probably do it. He wants a few, like if things don't go well in the midterms, he wants a few good headlines. He doesn't care how long they last, right? He's not looking for like some permanent peace or negotiation. He just wants a few good headlines. So if he bombs some things, maybe people will be like, oh, he dropped some bombs. He's strong

14:56again. This is as far as the thinking goes. It wasn't as if when Bush held that press conference after the shellacking in 2006, where he relieved Donald Rumsfeld that suddenly everyone was like, oh, good. Yeah. Didn't buy him a lot of goodwill. Did not. It's the right thing to do, but didn't buy him goodwill. Pod Save America is brought to you by Article. Article makes it effortless to build a home that lasts without the boutique markup. Their curated collections of mid-century coastal and Scandi furniture are designed to mix and match perfectly so you can create a cohesive designer look that will stand the test of time. We have a ton of Article furniture at this very office. We have really comfortable chairs.

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16:18This peace of mind ensures you can invest in your home without hesitation. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, go to article.com slash crooked and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout. That's article.com slash crooked for 50 bucks off your first purchase of $100 or more. Pods of America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. The holidays are fast approaching, which means thousands of companies have seasonal positions to fill, from extra retail workers to real bearded Santas to snowplow drivers. Wow. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that shows you the most interested qualified candidates first so you meet the right people faster.

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17:39Try it for free today at ZipRecruiter.com slash Cricut. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Cricut. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter.com slash Crooked. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Crooked. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Alright, on Sunday night, we got the final batch of Time Sienna polls. By the way, Sunday night release. You know, I was up four in the morning. Yeah, it was rude. I thought it was going to happen Thursday morning, Friday morning, Saturday morning, checking the phone. And then all of a sudden Sunday, it's like dinnertime Pacific. And I'm like, what? Now we're getting them? I had to drop everything. Terrible football game on. We're doing things. Anyway, these polls gave Democrats across the country a sinking feeling in our stomachs for the sole reason that they seem too good to be true.

18:24That's where we're at right now. We don't try. Bad polls. We feel the bad, the pit in our stomach. Good polls. We feel the pit in our stomach. Because it's not real. Good feelings aren't real. That's not real. Only, only, only anxiety is real. That's our pattern. That's our pattern that we seek to recreate in our politics. And yet we still read them anyway with great interest. All right. Abdul El-Sayed, up 11 in Michigan. Woof. Hot poll. Hot poll. A little-Sayed, up 11 in Michigan. Whew. Hot poll. A little hot. Feels tough to buy that one. James Tallarico, up 7 in Texas. Troy Jackson, up 6 in Maine. Sherrod Brown, up 5 in Ohio. Adam Hamilton, up 5 in Kansas. Mary Paltola, up 2 in Alaska. Josh Turek, up 1 in Iowa.

19:03We will take these state by state. We'll start with Michigan. Again, Time Sienna has Abdul up 11 over Mike Rogers, 53-42. That's the biggest margin of the group. Nate Silver's average has Abdul up just shy of five points. All very encouraging signs that are just getting slightly overshadowed by Haley Stevens' shocking decision to endorse Mike Rogers on Sunday morning, which included going to church with him and holding a press conference afterwards. Stevens had told fellow Democrats literally the night before, hours before I think, that she definitely would not endorse Rogers. And so that was a turn of events that Stevens had just a bit of trouble explaining in an incredibly awkward interview with Anderson Cooper on Sunday night.

19:51We're going to play a bunch of it. I'm going to do a longer clip here because it's just... It's unbelievable. It's one of the most unbelievable interviews I've seen. Debbie Dingle said that she talked to you at midnight last night and that you told her you were not going to endorse Mike Rogers. If that is true, what changed between then and this morning? Well, look, this is just a weight off my shoulders, OK? Abdul has been getting angrier and angrier. Back in August, you posted on social media, quote, Mike Rogers will be another rubber stamp for Donald Trump's dangerous agenda. We can't afford to give MAGA another Senate seat in November. How do you why is it OK now? Why can you afford now to give MAGA another Senate seat in November?

20:36Well, why is it OK to have the Democratic Party and a top nominee, you know, ejecting, you know, this type of or injecting rather this type of anger and lack of kindness. It sounds like you're upset with me, too, Anderson. No, I'm not. You're not really answering any of my questions. So it's somewhat frustrating. Do you want Democrats to win and control the Senate? I absolutely do. I just I'm just casting my vote this one way. Michigan, there's a lot of people out there voting. But with all due respect, you're casting your vote that way and you're on television right now talking about it and you had a press conference earlier. There's reports that more than half of your staff has quit. Is that accurate? Look, I have an incredible team in Washington.

21:25Do you still have them? Obviously, they cast their votes. You said in a press conference today, we can't stand with hate. Do you believe that Abdul El-Sayed is hateful or an anti-Semite? I'm just sick of who he stands with. He's picking a Sond Piker, and the uncle. I wanted to be at a public event with him up until some point, I guess, yesterday. And it's just an interesting change. And I think a lot of people are curious to try to understand it. Was that a question? No, I wanted to see if you wanted to fill in the silence, but you don't. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Dude! You told Debbie Dingle you were not going to do this, is that correct? Last night at some point. Anderson. That is nice editorializing

22:32and nice bits of information that you have about what's going on with Michigan politics. I'm giving you the courtesy of saying what actually happened. I had an opportunity to go to a church service and have a prayerful moment. It was Sunday. It was very beautiful. It was about friendship, which I have many incredible friends in the Democratic Party, and I care a lot about them. You don't want to say whether you had a conversation with Debbie. Okay. Congressman Haley, I really hail the Stevens. I appreciate your time. So I had not watched it on normal speed. It is so much worse than at like 2X. Oh, man. So like Dan and I did a reaction to the news on Sunday on YouTube. And I sort of got all my anger out there.

23:16And then I watched that Sunday night and I suddenly like shifted to just feeling like, ugh, people have got to just, someone who knows her, who she's still listening to, has to just like, get her off TV and stop doing press because like, something is just, something is off there. That's it. But what do you guys think? I felt bad for her after the CNN interview and then this morning I woke up and saw that she was talking to the free press and Scott Jennings' radio program and was on this endless media tour and so I think I went back to not feeling bad for her. Yeah, to be clear, I don't feel bad for her at all. I feel like for her own sake, but also for like doing all the rest of the damage she's

23:53doing. Like I think everyone, including Haley Stevens, would be better off if Haley Stevens just went away. Yeah, I think she's doing the most damage to herself right now. I mean, I think like for Abdul, obviously, this is not how you want to close out the campaign. This is not the message you want to be talking about. And it's it is catnip for the media. And you could see a bit of his frustration coming through when he was getting asked only about this. I think Abdul actually handled the questions about Haley quite well at the press conferences he did and tried to stay focused on the issues. But like I spent my weekend rage tweeting. I can't imagine how he felt or the people work for him. I kind of think her antics won't have a big impact on the outcome.

24:27There was a very few undecided voters left in Michigan, I think less than 5%. Democrats have largely coalesced around Abdul. If you were having doubts about Abdul, did you need Haley Stevens to tell you not to vote for him? Like I don't know. She also seems, I think, genuinely unwell. She may be in the midst of a mental health crisis, so she's probably not the best messenger, especially as she continued talking over and over again. There is a chance maybe this rallies the base too. I don't know. But she looked so petty and small. the double standard that Abdul has held to, which is he has called on to denounce this random ad, all sorts of things in her statement. But she has no problem endorsing a candidate who is running

25:10one of the most bigoted, nakedly racist campaigns that I've ever seen. Yeah. So when I saw this happen, I was like, not in my stomach. And I saw people kind of wish casting like, oh, maybe this will backfire. And I'm pretty convinced it will backfire, in part because she is so incoherent. And watching someone say that they want there to be a Democratic Senate, but they are voting against Abdul and being unable to defend it and being unable to defend how they could violate so many of their principles, including saying they are campaigning against hate, having made a series of demands of Abdul, including the most important one for her that he met in which she praised him for meeting and then turning around. Which condemning the contents of the rebellion

25:52pack. Yeah, there's the rebellion ad by Cenk Uygur. The uncle. The uncle. The uncle, clearly impactful. Clearly, like his insertion into this race was was wonderfully helpful for fantastic work. But he but Abdul did denounce. First of all, he had already disavowed it. He then disavowed and disagreed with it. Great. Like I had thought it was a good thing for him to do, not because it was trying to win over Haley Stevens, but because for some small subset of people who were maybe undecided and reluctant and who are Jewish Democrats specifically in Michigan being deluged with anti-Abdul hysteria was a free opportunity to disentangle having extreme criticisms of Israel while being able to call out anti-Semitism. Glad he does that. She still changes her mind. So she endorses, unendorses,

26:38endorses, and then unendorses Abdul while claiming nothing has changed for her. All of that to me adds up to kind of Democrats kind of coalescing around Abdul. And like you have really strong statements from everyone from Chuck Schumer to the to the left saying that they are extremely upset with Haley Stevens for doing this. So in the end, I think it becomes a unifying moment. Plus, he raises a bunch of money off of it. So in the end, do I think becomes a unifying moment. Plus, he raises a bunch of money off of it. So in the end, do I think she makes a big difference? Like there's probably a lot that fiance was saying how she was getting a standing ovation from thousands. I don't know where that was taking place.

27:16Some event. I saw some clip of it. Yeah, there's a Jewish community event fundraiser. I have a feeling that she is getting a lot of applause from a subset of Democratic voters who are planning to vote for against Abdul anyway. I don't know who is being brought along by Haley Stevens and for everybody else, I think it's a unifying moment about the stakes in the election. And by the way, Abdul's remarks right after where he talked about it, I just thought were excellent. And that's it. It's just worth pointing out, too, that like for those listening and thinking, why didn't he just denounce the ad earlier? Her ransom note included much more than just denouncing the ad. It was like the ad didn't invent its argument. It dramatized one of Dr.

27:57Al-Sayed has made in his own words. So she wanted him to basically condemn his own past statements and policies. Also, get get Israel out of his explanation for everything Michigan can't afford. Apparently, we can't talk about the Iran war increasing costs. She also wanted him to take down his advertisement featuring Tucker Carlson. Which, by the way, is just idiotic. Which she said was an insult to the black community. It was just like this crazy all over the place statement from her. I've had this sort of experience of being on both sides of the algorithm in the last couple of days, right? Because- Straight shooter. Well, because we posted a video of my saying that Jewish voters in Michigan have a moral obligation

28:37to sort Abdul, which got me just absolutely built. Like I just, oh, you know, you would have been a Jew loading people on the fucking trains like that level kind of fun. That's terrific. And then I point out that I actually do think that that chancad is anti-Semitic and that Abdul should denounce it, not because he hasn't been against anti-Semitism, but just because I thought it was a free opportunity to demonstrate the points he's been making about the difference between having a disagreement on Israel and when a ton of people feel as though they're being targeted, that he'll stand up for them. Fine. I think those two things do go together. And I think you see why when you have someone like Haley Stevens, who is abandoning everything that she claims to care about and claiming to

29:21making a decision based on hate while siding with Mike Rogers and making zero demands of him. She makes ridiculous demands of Abdul, not just to disavow an ad, which I thought Abdul should denounce before Haley Stevens ever put out a statement, but also to basically relitigate the disagreements they had over the course of the primary and a completely specious attack on an ad with Tucker Carlson. If Tucker Carlson is saying bad things about Mike Rogers, damn right get that in front of people. Let's stop eating babies. It was a ridiculous fake attack. But then also going over to Mike Rogers, no problem with the hateful rhetoric from Mike Rogers. No reassurances needed for Haley Stevens on any of that.

29:52Well, this is, I mean, I had a suspicion around the time when she was, you know, the calls for him to condemn the ad and all that. Like, none of this was on the level that uh and the reason that abdul's team did not want to make a big deal of going even further to condemn the ad is because they knew that no condemnation is going to be enough for hayley stevens and the people around hayley stevens and the people criticizing abdul and it's like apologize for this okay i apologize for this denounce this ad all right denounce this ad don't say this and it's like what you want is for him not to have the position he has on israel that's what you want and also like that beyond that like it's never it's never in the level and then when your criticism of

30:34abdul uh doesn't seem like it's working with enough uh you know jewish democrats in michigan now you're going to throw in that he uh somehow that like black Democrats in Michigan should be wary of Abdul because of because Tucker Carlson is in an ad for five seconds saying that he wouldn't vote for Mike Rogers with a gun to his head. As if that is some like, you know, beyond the pale thing to include in an ad. The whole thing is fucking bullshit. And she proved it because he goes and denounces the ad. And then she's like, I don't want you to just denounce the ad. I want you to denounce what you said in the primary about Israel. And it's like, well, the primary happened. He won. You endorsed him without a problem then.

31:12And now you're going back and saying he should. I mean, it's just ridiculous. Yeah, I feel like these are separate things. I agree. I don't think Abdul should denounce the ad to please Haley Stevens or the people that will that for whom there will never be enough. I thought it was the right thing to do to announce the ad, in part because it's being shared around Michigan as being his ad, which I don't think is fair. And the fact that he went from, you know, disavowing to say disagrees with the statement and which which Haley Stevens seemed to celebrate. Like it points out that Haley Stevens is not on the level. It doesn't mean that he isn't that it isn't the right thing to do in that case. Like I thought it was I think it got harder as the week went on. Like, I think if he had just said

31:48that he disagreed with it from the beginning, I don't think it would have changed Haley Stevens, but clearly like this was a roiling issue. Like I think it was a, I think it was a roiling issue online in certain communities. I think in crass political terms, Abdul's job is to talk about the things he wants to talk about in a campaign and keep the focus on the issues he wants to focus on. So like I could make a political argument for why you don't denounce that ad because you don't get sucked into this morass of like relitigating all the shit we fought about in the primary. Like I could also make the argument that denounce it and put out a statement and move on. Right. I think it's like I just think I think you could go either way.

32:22I think he ultimately does disavow it. Right. Like and it didn't help and it didn't help with hayley stevens right and it like it it like well first of all it did i mean who knows we can't making decisions about what to do in politics but the point i'm making about the messaging focus one which is like she this wasn't about the ad like this feels like a political rollout that started with her fiance which led to this crazy statement, which led to this weird back and forth and her lying to like everyone she knows in her life, her political mentors, people she was with at dinner, and then culminating in like, this is what Anderson Cooper was trying to get at. Like what changed between midnight, like Saturday and Sunday morning?

32:59It's inexplicable. Yes. Right. Which is why I just like, don't trust that any of this would have helped because she was the one creating the like firestorm. Yeah. What I'm trying to separate out. I agree that what I'm trying to separate out is the fact that Haley Stevens ultimately said she was pleased with this statement and then does this crazy back and forth Hamlet routine until abandoning Abdul part of whatever's going on in that relationship, whatever she's saying, lying, whatever. I don't have to worry about Haley Stevens. She seems fucking out of her mind. Fine. Whether or not it was helpful to denounce the ad, like I think it was the right thing to do. I was glad he did it. And I was glad that Haley Stevens said it was that he that that she was pleased by the

33:35statement, which seemed to have resolved it. Like I hear take your point like he could have whether it was like necessary to go further in that first statement, whether he could have dispelled with it right at the beginning, I don't know that that changes anything to do with Haley Stevens. I just want to separate out. Haley Stevens does not get to be the arbiter of what counts as anti-Semitism. She does not get to be the person that sets the standard for what is sort of helpful to a small subset of reluctant Jewish voters in Michigan. Also, that small subset of reluctant Jewish voters aren't going to be the difference maker in this election, to your point, which is why they ended up bringing in all this other

34:12bullshit about how the Tucker Carlson is anti-black. Fine. I just think those things should be separated because I like I am glad that Abdul denounced the ad in part because my argument to Jewish voters who may not make a difference in the election, but who I care about because I'm part of that community, I want them to understand why I believe, feel so strongly that it is important because of Jewish values to support this campaign. And I think what Haley Stevens is doing is helping to make that case. Yeah. And I do think that, I mean, we'll see how the results go, but just looking at this back to the Time Sienna poll. So this was like, like obviously you know probably abdul's best result in a poll

34:45that we've seen it is he matches uh jocelyn benson's margin pretty much in this poll he matches he and benson match the generic ballot in michigan in this poll so it's about what 10 or 11 points um if trump when won michigan by what one two points and there's a shift to the nation the shift of the entire nation left about nine points on average in some of these polls. That pretty much lines up with where Michigan would be. In the poll, Abdul is winning 96 percent of Kamala Harris voters and only two percent of Kamala Harris voters are voting for Mike Rogers. So Democrats for Mike Rogers is not a real thing, at least in this poll, unless the poll is completely wrong. Now, this was versus 91%. 91.5% was the split in September.

35:36So last time Times-Tiananmen did this, Abdul was winning 91% of Democrats. 5% were with Mike Rogers, and now it's 96.2%. Abdul's favorability rating in this poll, 50% favorable, 38% unfavorable. Rogers is 37, 49. Trump is 34, 60. Abdul is favored on cost of living by 54, 37. Foreign wars, 52, 39. Best for Michiganders like you, 53, 39. So again, we could be waking up Wednesday and the whole poll could be wrong. But at least according to this poll, like the media narrative, which is pushed obviously by Republicans, but also some centrist Democrats, some Democrats, is that like, Abdul is extreme. He's too far left, hateful, footsies with that, all this kind of stuff. Like none of that is showing up in the actual numbers, in these numbers that we've seen.

36:20Again, there could be something hidden, but at least in what we've seen, they're not showing Where did the uncle rank? Yeah. It was actually, it was like cost of living. Uncle. Uncle. And then, and hate and just hate. And then it was the economy again. You know what's interesting about the poll? Look, Nate Cohen, to his credit, talked about why they put this out, even though obviously it is, like, if it turns out that it's closer, they're going to go, wow, they were so off. They were so in favor of the Democrats in this poll. And they talk about the challenge of reaching Republican voters. And they released the data of what the poll would look like if they kind of adjusted it down. And Democrats are still winning in that polling.

36:58But let's say that that even if the polling is a little bit, it's not crazy off. Right. And Abdul really does have a sizable lead. I do think a lot of the debate that you see that clearly Haley Stevens is steeped in, her fiance is steeped in, is about what it would have looked like if it was much closer, right? The urgent need for him to make concessions on specific policies around Israel, right? The urgent, like the effort to tar him in this specific way for a subset, a small subset of voters in Michigan, right? Jewish voters are a small subset of Michigan. But based on this polling, that's just really not what's going on, which is making- I also don't want to pin this on Jewish voters in Michigan because there are plenty of Jewish

37:34voters in Michigan that are behind Abdul. And then there are plenty of people who are not Jewish at all who have been propagating these narratives about Abdul, including Mike Rogers. No, no, sorry. I should be, I should be, I think that like the effort to appeal to Jewish voters in this way and to appeal to voters who may not, this may not be their number one issue, but it's a kind of shibboleth about being a lefty. Fine. No, yes. And that, that will have turned, we'll see, we'll see how important that was. One other thing I just, I watched the Ross Douthat conversation with Abdul, the full conversation. Yeah, that's must-see TV. Well, and, yeah. As long as there's an NFL lead-in, some people agree with you.

38:15Well, this is the only available online. This is the unedited clip. This is the Trump-insisted, pure, uncut Douthit Abdul. Uncut Douthit, that's what I want. Yeah, but I don't know. I assume it is an uncut Douthit. Abdul uncut doubt that that's what I want. Yeah. But I don't know. I assume it is an uncut doubt. OK, well, it's Catholic. I don't know. But so anyway, he's a traditionalist. It's a great conversation. And obviously the parts that we clipped out have been about Israel. But it's interesting to watch Abdul have a long, substantive, somewhat contentious conversation about health care, about data centers, about the economy and capitalism, about democratic socialists. And it was just a reminder, too,

38:49that like Abdul in the Senate will just be an interesting, thoughtful policy voice around a whole range of issues. And he's an incredibly smart and talented politician and thinker about democratic politics and policy. And that also, I think, gets lost in this Haley Stevens chaos. But I was reminded of that today. This episode of Pod Save America is brought to you by our friends at Wild Grain. Cozy season is here, which means cooler temperatures, warm ovens, and the perfect time to enjoy fresh baked breads and seasonal treats at home. Wild Grain delivers sourdough bread, seasonal pastries, and French butter made with simple, recognizable ingredients by small independent bakeries, all delivered to

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42:31Silver Bulletin's average has him ahead by a bit more than three points. As we've discussed, Hamilton has done a great job of making an issue of Roger Marshall's history of sending debt collectors after his patients back when he was an OBGYN and in some cases leading to them going to jail. Marshall apparently got sick of his campaign's refusal to respond more forcefully to these charges. And according to the New York Times, he went around his staff. This is always when, you know, things are getting good. He went around his staff to record this ad with his own film crew, which he then posted on Twitter. Amazing. Let's watch. I'm Dr. Roger Marshall, and you should know the truth about Adam Hamilton's ads.

43:14They're false, plain and simple. Now, to ensure that 40,000 Kansans would still have access to care, we did have to keep the lights on. So we occasionally handed some accounts over to collection agency, just like nearly every private medical practice does. To be crystal clear, the Kansas Bill of Rights ensures that no one can go to prison because of indebtedness. And I would never wish that on any patient I had the privilege to serve. My involvement in any patient's account ended the minute it was turned over to an outside agency. I never had anyone arrested, not once, and Adam Hamilton knows... Never had anyone arrested is your closing message. In case you want to parse what he's saying there,

43:52it is in the Kansas Bill of Rights that you can't go to jail for having debt, but what happened was people who got the debt collection notices and might not have known, then got a summons. If they didn't appear in court for the summons, then they went to jail as a result. There was an arrest warrant from the bench for them as a result. So it is still true that people, because of the debt collection, ended up arrested. It's unfair. I saw this ad and I actually hadn't seen the reporting about it. I saw this ad and the first thing I thought is, he made them do this his key is he is furious uh like you like hayley stevens is in these crazy text messages that's riling her up he was riling himself up with his doctor buddies about how he's getting the fucking shaft in this

44:35campaign we remember them as jason turkish yeah in the mastermind the mastermind behind the whole goddamn thing well i'm sure yeah he's probably got the group chat going everyone's spinning him up he's like you know what i going to grab my Merlot shirt and I'm going to go out there and I'm going to talk about how I never knowingly had any new mothers arrested. And I think this is going to work for me because the Kansas Bill of Rights says no one can go to prison because of indebtedness. But they might. It's like, what do you? Someone get me that folksy guitar riff that's in all those ads. We don't need much more than that. Now I want to be holding the fence. Yeah, I want to be off to the side of the shot. one hand on the fence. And like the way they rolled it out

45:08was the staff refused to air the thing. So he emailed it to random people. So one guy posted. So you get all the earned media of this ad kicking back up the stories about him getting the woman who just had a C-section arrested three times. But you get none of the benefit of paid media getting your message in front of people. It is the biggest campaign cell phone I could imagine. The first time that the race really caught my attention was when they had a debate at the state fair. First of all, Hamilton is just a great candidate, but then Roger Marshall couldn't get a word out because he was being booed over this. And this has clearly just been dogging him everywhere he's going. And it must have been driving him crazy. And their internals must not look so great because he's

45:55saying, well, fuck it. I want this message out there. And the staff is refusing to air it and leaking that they're refusing to air it. And it sounds so corrupt. That staff sounds terrible. Yeah. This poll has Hamilton leading a sample in the poll that leans Republican by nine points. And he's ahead by five points. The House ballot in the poll is 50 to 47 Republicans. So there's a three point lead on the House ballot. It's a nine point lean in the state. And Adam Hamilton's still up five and this with this electorate in the poll. Another thing that was interesting is the number of voters who had either no opinion or didn't know, have never heard of him. Adam Hamilton fell from 36 percent last time there was a good poll from New York Times

46:39Siena in this state to just 13 percent. So as he has gotten much more well-known, usually your approval rating goes down if the negative ads are working. But for him, it's only gotten better. And he's got 13% of Republicans supporting him. And Roger Marshall, his favorable rating is 39% in this poll. 39% is also his very unfavorable rating. So not just total unfavorable, it's people who have an extremely unfavorable view of him is also the same as those who have a favorable view of him. Then this is a state where I'm skeptical of the polling for demographic reasons. And because I don't know, it seems like it's hard to poll Kansas. But Nate Cohen had a piece where he wrote about how the Times in 2022 had a poll that had Sharice Davids up 14

47:27points in the third congressional district in Kansas. They downplayed it because it seemed unrealistic. And then she won by 12. So they have a track record of actually calling the ball right in Kansas, which was interesting. I'd forgotten about that one. The other one I thought about is in 2022, the abortion ban. So like we've now, I mean, it sounds, the whole Kansas thing sounds crazy. But when you think about the Sharice Davids race, when you think about the abortion ban. So like we've now, I mean, it sounds, the whole Kansas thing sounds crazy. But when you think about the Sharice Davids race, when you think about the abortion ban, which was a statewide ballot initiative, you think about the fact that

47:52Laura Kelly is governor right now, Democrat, Kathleen Sebelius, our friend Kathleen Sebelius has been, you know, very popular Democratic governor. Like it's not crazy that they would be a Democrat elected in Kansas, or at least not as crazy as it seems at first look. Yeah, I think a lot of people that have taken the current specific conditions of red states as sort of like some immutable fact of politics. The ACA passes in part because you have people like Ben Nelson in Nebraska, right? It's just not we're not that far off from having Democrats as senators in these places. And the idea that it's better to talk about abolishing the Senate than actually competing and winning these places, I think is pretty foolish.

48:34Closing message from Matt Schlapp. Remember Matt Schlapp? Yeah, yeah, he did some schlapping. He did some schlapping, he got him in trouble. Conservative, national conservative, Trump guy. He posted, dear Kansas conservatives, if we lose the Senate race in Kansas, we most likely lose the majority in the Senate. Vote Republican tomorrow, even those of you who are hurting. If you don't, it will all get much worse. Your message of frustration has been heard loudly and clearly. What a message. And also, has it been heard loudly and clearly? By who? Who has heard the message? Right. I mean, it's just so hard. The other part of this, which is hard to untangle from the polls, is, OK, there's a concern that some of these rural voters, these Trump voters may not be as enthusiastic and either they're not going to vote or they're just not talking to pollsters. But also we know that the tariffs and the war has had this disproportionate impact on

49:29some of his of Trump's best places. Right. And so it's just hard to disentangle what that will be. And actually, you know, that's that's why I think it's the kind of hurting and polling. It leads to either everyone moving together correctly or everyone moving together incorrectly. But in this case, I think we have a slightly outlier poll. It's saying maybe things are actually moving in this direction for real. We'll see. Over in Alaska, the race is closer with Mary Peltola just two points up on Dan Sullivan, according to The Times. It's not far off from where Nate's model has the race, where Peltola is up by around two and a half points. It is the only poll in The Times' last batch of polls where the margin has gotten tighter for Democrats.

50:15I think she was up six or seven in the last one. We also got an update on the Dan Sullivan, Dan Sullivan ballot stacking scandal, the two Dan Sullivans, the Dan Sullivan. On Sunday, a federal judge dismissed the Department of Justice's Trump-ordered lawsuit trying to block the election certification. If the incumbent Sullivan lost, Trump is still complaining about the ballot stacking. Of course, he talked about it at the Reflecting Pool event on Monday after posting a photo of the final Alaska ballot with the word scam. You got Tim Sheehy, who's the senator from Montana, saying, of course, we should never seat Mary Peltola if she wins. What's your level of concern about the ballot stacking issue at this late stage?

50:51I would say I'm a little – there's like two levels to it. One, is this going to bother undecided voters and turn them away from Peltola? We don't know. I'm skeptical that there's going to be a lot of people, but it could move enough at the margin. And then two, it's like will Trump try to use this story as a pretext to overturn the results if Republicans lose? I think one, we don't know. Two, absolutely. And the DOJ amended their lawsuit to include all the New York Times reporting before it was tossed. So it's very frustrating because even like, I don't think this is going to really impact the vote all that much because of the way Alaska votes. But it was a ham-handed, foolish attempt to do some dirty tricks that I think is backfiring pretty badly.

51:33This is the one where I think the one race where I was like my view of the race has gone from the most bullish to like now I don't really know. A, Alaska is very, very hard to pull. It's just hard to get people on the phone there. It's hard to get people on the phone anywhere, but especially in Alaska. Also, I think- Because it's so cold. You wonder where that is. You'd think with it so cold, you'd be inside. Yeah, I think it's just that like it's so rural and people are so spread out. It's all over. I think it's just, it's a tough electorate to kind of. But they're not going through the door. I mean, I agree with you. I'm not saying you're doing a great, but I actually haven't thought about it.

52:10Like, why does them being far apart from one another change the way they answer the phone? Yeah, well, they also, I mean, they're doing mail, they're doing online surveys, they're doing all that kind of stuff. I think that also that Dan Sullivan is a, he's like, you're seeing in these polls, he's like more well-liked than some of these Republican nominees. So it's just hard to tell what's actually going to happen there. And so it's up in the air. Yeah. The third thing I would just add to Tommy's list is even if there is nothing inherently illegal with having some random other Dan Sullivan run, is there any exposure in the effort to keep it a secret? And the deception about it, which I think would play into Trump's hand as well, Trump's DOJ's hands as well. We'll see.

52:57Here's my question. If the response is, well, it doesn't really matter because there's ranked choice voting, what was the value of doing it? Dan and I talked about this on Friday. And like there wasn't a ton of value in doing it. If you really dig into it, if you rank the different choices, like there's some – Some people drop off maybe. They only vote one. I think it's – Yes. Here's the thing. That's part of it. Every Alaskan voter that they've interviewed since then have been like, first of all, we knew this was happening the whole time. You have to think we're fucking idiots to not understand. Which says something bad both about the effort to do it and the effort to make people think that the effort to do it was sleazy and beyond the pale.

53:38Because most people in Alaska, I think, are just like, yeah, of course we know the difference. And like, what the fuck? It is sleazy, but it's a question whether it be efficacious. That's what I'm saying, right, which is I think that people in Alaska were skeptical about. I think weirdly in 2014, there were two Dan Sullivans on the ballot at the same time, just by happenstance. Yeah. But just to be clear, like the Republicans do it too in Alaska, I think because of the system, there's always just efforts to like leech away a few votes from each side. And I think this cycle, the main Republican super PAC spent like 500 grand to get a Green Party candidate who lives in Arizona to run. And there was like, there was a lot of paid communications, like $800,000 for

54:13the paid communications designed to siphon votes away from Democrats to fringe candidates. So for some reason, everyone just fucks around in Alaska. I would say Sarah Longwell's final focus group was Alaska voters. I was listening to the episode over the weekend and she's talking to Amy Walter. First of all, talking about why it's hard to pull Alaska. Sarah could only get three Alaska voters for the focus group. She was like looking far and wide. And you did hear these three women who are like pretty conservative saying like, don't like Trump. but like Dan Sullivan's always been they all know Dan Sullivan they all know Mary Paul Toller right because it's a small enough state um but the best anecdote which will confirm all of our priors was um there's this

54:54woman who's a Trump 24 voter Sullivan 22 voter or Sullivan 20 voter sorry six years ago um and was like you know I was gonna I don't I'm not happy with Donald Trump, but I like Dan Sullivan. And I was just going to, I was going to vote for him again and just vote the same way. But then Trump came to the state and did that rally. That's great. And now not going to do it, voting for Peltola. It's like, it's so funny that Trump goes to Alaska and his rally turned off a voter. The other thing too is the, these polls are all obviously very good news for Democrats if they hold. But one, I talked about this with Dan this morning on the rapid response that it also shows late breaking voters going towards Republicans by plus nine, which is

55:38a little bit confusing. But take that as a fact, then if people really are breaking towards Republicans, it really won't matter if the margins are where they're at in the other states. You have a bunch of Democrats over 50. But here in Iowa, in Alaska, where it's this close, people late breaking could close the gap. Yeah, I think I think it makes sense. But it's also not something to it's not unexpected because these are red states that Donald Trump won by double digits. And so the undecided vote is naturally going to be mostly Republican voters. And so you're going to get some – to the extent that the Republican creeps up, you're going to get voters coming home, which is why you're getting like these late deciders

56:16or later deciders who are just tuning in late actually just coming home. Well, it would be – yes, it would be that they are late deciders in an environment where a lot of Republicans who have decided early decided to vote for a Democrat. Yes. Right. All right. Let's talk Texas where the Times had Tallarico up by seven points and leading Ken Paxton by three and a half points in Nate's model. Like Trump, Paxton's also closing strong. His campaign appeared to cancel the final event of his come and take it tour, which was set to take place at the Alamo. He canceled the event at the Alamo. Well, your other option is get slaughtered by Santa Ana's guys. It's just funny. It's funny too, because I can see being talked into the Alamo metaphor

57:02and then also being talked out of the Alamo metaphor. Because it is perhaps a place to do your last stand. But of course, the reason we do into the Alamo metaphor and then also being talked out of the Alamo metaphor. Because it is perhaps a place to do your last stand. But of course, the reason we do remember the Alamo. You've got to stand, though. You've got to go. You can't forget the Alamo. It's got to be a stand. You've got to stand there. But also, it's not like it's a metaphor about winning. It's a metaphor about getting. Imminent death. Getting the big L. And it's where Pee Wee Herman's bicycle was. No basement. Most importantly. No basement in the Alamo. No basement. No basement in the Alamo. That's what we learned.

57:26Paxton also closed his speech on Sunday by saying quote, Texas has never been this close to slipping away. We've never been this close to losing everything that we hold dear. If Texas falls, we don't have another Texas to move to. Which is technically true. It's just going to float down the Gulf. That's a very funny kind of sentence for just a losing candidate it's just like hey do you think there's a chance that you're talking about yourself are you a little worried you know it's like like this is a very big deal for you to lose i feel it's very emotional for you ken paxton uh last thoughts on texas blue texas is it happening i mean it's weird to feel good about texas it mostly because of the demographics, like 40% Latino.

58:08It's because Paxton is such a historically terrible candidate. I mean, he gave a pedophile a sweetheart deal. He stole from his friends. His staff reported him to the FBI. He was impeached by Republicans. And he seems to have a hard time keeping it within the confines of his marriage. Everything like he does. What's funny about that is basically those all apply to Trump. Yeah, that's true. Every single one. That's true. I also think they tried really hard to make Tallarico into a boogeyman. It just doesn't seem like it's worked particularly well. I don't know. Yeah. Tallarico's skilled. James Tallarico is too much of a pussy for Texas. Just didn't work. I think like he's his favorable rating in this poll is like plus 10.

58:49And Paxton is negative 21. Now, if Paxton ends up pulling this out and winning, you can see here he gets Paxton in this poll gets 44 percent of the vote, even though he's at 33% approval. So this is like, do enough Texas Republicans hold their nose and vote for Ken Paxton, not because they like Ken Paxton, not even necessarily because they dislike James Tallarico, but just because they're Republicans and they can't vote for Democrats. Like that is the, because again, this is a state where Trump won, it's Texas. And so, you know, it's a hard partisan lean to overcome. It's also funny to think about mismanagement in California caused a lot of people to move out of this state. And a lot of those people did end up in Texas.

59:32Now, I think that's probably a more conservative group than a typical California voter. But it is also going to be a subset of people who are very motivated around the economy and just not upset, not as susceptible to kind of hippy-dippy persuasion. Yeah. And so Gina Hinojosa is up in this poll as well. That race has been clear. Tallarico is like two points ahead of Hinojosa and Paxton's four points behind Abbott. And so, you know, the governor's race is obviously much tighter, but we will see. In Iowa, the race continues to look pretty tight as well. Time Sienna has Josh Turek up just one point on Ashley Hinson, 48, 47. And, you know, Nate and his average has it at 0.7. So by any measure, it's effectively a tie. Trump was in

1:00:16Dubuque on Sunday where he tried to break the race open by rallying his supporters around this message. I knew Ashley for a long time and she was a little bit heavier. She knew the weight that was on her, really literally the weight, and she knew the importance of what she was doing. And she went out the old-fashioned way too, not with, you know, give me a shot. Boy, she put herself, she went on a regimen, she put herself in shape. She's in perfect shape. She was good. I thought she was great the other way, but she put herself in shape and she's in perfect shape. She was good. I thought she was great the other way. But she put herself in shape and she did that for you. Me, I put on a couple of pounds.

1:00:51I hated that. I had not seen that. I cannot fucking believe that is real. Oh yeah. He did that? That was his rally? What? You know what? He wants to treat both genders equally. If he's going to be talking about John Husted's ass nonstop, he's he wants to treat both genders equally right yeah if he's going to be talking about john husted's ass non-stop he's gotta say something about the female candidates look donald trump and she didn't she didn't she did it the old-fashioned way yeah she didn't fucking take the shot like i did yeah all of a sudden yeah donald trump the one issue he's a fucking calvinist on his weight loss the uh the it's funny too. It's like Trump's sexuality has always been really interesting.

1:01:26And for him, it's about the person. Sapiosexual? Yeah, he's just like he, like John Husted, that does it for him. Ashley Hinson, that does it for him. He just, what he's attracted to, yeah, it's a body. It's a body, but it's also a mind. And he doesn't see gender, you know, the way that we do. So that's kind of cool about him. I asked Harry Enten if there's, you know, the polls tell us anything about a benefit from being caked up. So you got to listen to the Sunday episode. You know that what's what's caked up having a big, thick, juicy ass. Oh, yeah. Bounce a quarter off it. Like a Houston. Yeah. Get two dimes in a nickelback. As we've discussed, Democrat Rob Sands seems to be running way ahead of Turek in the governor's race.

1:02:05He's up more than seven in Nate's average. Tommy, what do you think? Do you think there's going to be a bunch of ticket splitters here? Do you think that Rob could help Josh get over the finish line at the end? I hope so. I mean, yeah, Rob's running a really good campaign. It's a unique campaign. It's sort of this nonpartisan campaign. He's also benefiting because his opponent lives in Kansas. That's always a good thing when you can run against someone who doesn't live in the state. But like I was talking to him. How many points do you give him for looking like you? Dozens. Dozens. Worth like a point or two at least in the home stretch. That's four X being caked up in my opinion. Caked up. I was talking to J.D. Scholten earlier today. He served in the Iowa State Legislature,

1:02:41ran for Congress. He personally knocked on a thousand doors, probably in Western Iowa where he lives. He says it's the best environment of his political career, meaning like the best targeting, the best lists, more persuasion conversations, the best conversations overall, and like more people knowing what the hell is going on. So that is optimistic. That tells me that Rob's got a really good field program because he's got a lot of money and then he can hopefully turn out more Democrats and then independents that are Democratic leaning that you need in that state to win. The pessimistic case for Josh Turek in that Senate race is the Republicans spent, I think, $100 million against him. And Ashley is a way better opponent, regardless of what Trump thinks about her appearance and how she lost weight.

1:03:21I think the question. Oh, he loves it. Yeah, he does love it. The question for Turek's, the question I think will be answered by the election is, do tariffs and do diesel prices keep home enough conservative farmers that are enraged about the economy? Yeah, I think you're exactly right. This is a environment election more than it is candidate on the Senate side, right? Because first of all, got to give Josh T Josh Turk his due here. I think when you talk to people about all these races and all these candidates and you talk about Josh Turk, everyone's like, yeah, he's a good candidate. He has the best democratic net favorability of any of the candidates polled in the seven states set by New York Times.

1:04:01Yeah. And like, it's just so funny because everyone, you know, a lot about Abdul and James Tallarico and who's popular and who's not. Josh Turek, most favorable, highest favorable rating of anyone in the poll. Now, Ashley Hinson has the highest favorable rating of any Republican of the seven. So now the two people who are the most favorable. Now, hers is still 43-43. Like that's what it takes to be the best-rated Republican of anyone in these states. But so I think that's why it ends up being like just does Iowa as a state get over the hump of like what the partisan lean is of that state because, you know, a Democrat hasn't won it since Barack Obama did. Started back in 1962 with a simple tagline, always low prices, always.

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1:05:43when Walmart says save money, live better, they mean it. Learn more today at walmart.com slash save money. Long play, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics.

1:06:21And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House Communications Director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Okay, we've been talking about QB Mail for a minute now, Bow. And wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love Kewpie. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Uh, do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise, the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know it, you start seeing it everywhere.

1:07:01People ask what makes it different from basic mayo. Well, the answer, egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles. Chefs use it, restaurants use it, people who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, Kewpie it. So if you haven't tried Kewpie yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise. In Ohio, Sherrod leads John Husted, ass man, by five, according to the Times, and by three, according to Nate. Not much to say here other than the fact that the state has apparently set a midterms early voting record.

1:07:51Also, though, they have this horrible law there. There's like one early midterm voting location per county, which is why it's been so fucking hard to do. Well, because, you know, there's the counties. Some are very big and some very small. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Vance was also in the state on Monday where he closed out the campaign by, you know, fear mongering about, quote, illegal communities of Somali immigrants, quote, coordinating to flood the polls and drown out Ohio voters. Excellent. Wonderful stuff from the vice president in his home state. What do you guys think about this one? This is another, this is sort of like Alaska where as we get closer to the end, I'm like, oh, can we do it in Ohio?

1:08:29Because it's such a, it's become such a tough state for Democrats. Again, I've always believed if anyone can do it, it's Sherrod. And I also, and like in this poll, Amy Acton is also 49, 43 over Vivek, which is very close to the margin, Sherrod's margin. And so, you know, Brown's favorables in this poll is 46-44. Husted is 36-48. So it's not like anyone likes John Husted. And people do like Sherrod Brown. But again, you know, Donald Trump won this by double digits. So yeah, I share your fear. It's such a tough state. I think it's trending against us. I'm so used to seeing polls in the end that have the Democrat at like 46, 47, and then we lose. Harry Enten pointed out to me – I mean, obviously, Sherrod's a great candidate.

1:09:13He's like the best candidate we could have run. Harry Enten pointed out that there are people, respondents in polls, who think that Sherrod is the incumbent. Yes. Which is like a funny, goofy thing to imagine. Here's my big hope. I am hoping that Vivek Ramaswamy, being the worst person in the world and running one of the most shameful ads in history against Amy Acton, will collapse the electorate, throw the election to both Acton and Sherrod Brown, and hopefully turn the state to us. That's my great hope. Yeah. Yeah. That's my feeling too, that people have got to be demoralized. If you're watching your gubernatorial nominee do this despicable ad campaign that has completely backfired on him. There's another moment where he's confronted by

1:09:56someone else. He's just constantly being kind of hounded by questions following this. He can't defend it. It's just he's got to bring people down. And in this poll, right, Sherrod is up by five. One second. Leave it in. That's pundit. That's pundit. Sherrod's up by five, right? Like, there's still room for the poll to be wrong. It's a dumb Emerson poll that came out right before we recorded that has Husted up three. You ruined my day. Did you see the photos? There's a tweet that went pretty viral of Vivek Ramaswamy's haircut. And it just said, Vivek went to his barber and said, fuck my shit up. He's just so unappealing. I guess the other point of optimism is like it doesn't really make – like if it really is this close in Iowa, in Kansas, right, in South Carolina, wherever, like, right, it just wouldn't make sense that Iowa, Iowa's not a hard state compared to those states.

1:10:48Every state that touches Appalachia is the, so it's like Eastern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, you start getting these areas of the country that are different than the Republican voters in the plain states. But the other thing is you have like, you know, Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is, has become like much more democratic. Right. So like does that offset the rest of the state in some of the rural areas? And do you get enough to turn out in Cleveland, which sometimes lags? But like, you know, Sherrod did this eight years ago. Now, eight years ago is a long time. But in 2018, it was a Trump midterm. What that was eight years ago. Yeah. Jesus Christ. We're doing this a long time. But, you know, he did it with a midterm – what was that? Was that eight years ago? Yeah. Jesus Christ. We've been doing this a long time. We've been doing it a long time.

1:11:27But he did it with a midterm electorate. So all he has to do is – how much has Ohio changed? The electorate changed in eight years is the question. And the other thing, different from 18, is Trump is much less popular than he was when Sherrod won the state in 2018. So if he wins, that's the explanation. Yeah. It's worth saying – I had to talk about this with Dan earlier as well, that in 2018, the economy had a positive approval rating. Donald Trump was not nearly as unpopular as he is right now. There wasn't a war in Iran, right? There's a lot of reasons to believe that this should feel different than 2018. Yep, right. Yep. That brings us to our last state, Maine. Time Sienna has Troy Jackson leading Susan Collins by six, 51 to 45.

1:12:04Woohoo! Nate has it at four. Put that in your boba. Didn't go for a cord of woodchuck there. So pretty stable, if not overwhelming lead for Jackson. That's actually expanded a bit over the course of the fall. I don't know. How do you guys feel? We felt tense about this one for a while, but this is one where on paper the evidence keeps getting better for Jackson as we get to the close. Dude, I get to May and then I have face blindness. I got nothing going on there. Yeah. I mean, here's the one that if you're just – No feel for it. On the other side, like we've been talking about all these red states that have partisan liens where trump won them by double digits and they're just really republican states it's going to take a real over performance by the democratic candidate

1:12:53to put them over the top in alaska ohio iowa this is one where if you're just doing like partisan lean and like the and you're doing the generic ballot shifts nine or ten points then means like a plus 17 democratic state right right and i know everyone's like susan collins is magic and she's teflon and all this kind of stuff but like her approval is way down and her yeah her approval in this poll is 48 49 right which is still good but not what it was not what it was jackson's still underwater but he's 45-48. The independents in the poll, the Times poll where she was leading by three were 47-47. It is now 52-41 in favor of Troy Jackson in this poll. So that is probably a big reason why he's leading.

1:13:39And the House generic ballot now and Hannah Pingree is running for governor. They're like more 55-42. So they're now closer to where Troy Jackson is, which tells you that the partisan lean of the state and the polarization of the state is sort of just naturally – if you're a Democrat and you weren't sure about Jackson, you're kind of coming home at this point. At least that's what the numbers are showing. She's a good politician. I never thought she was magic. She's a good politician. And she has done a lot of just good old-fashioned politics in Maine for a very, very, very long time. And that bought her a lot of goodwill and credibility. The question is, can that – is that a strong enough seawall against the waters that are rising?

1:14:18And hopefully the answer is no. A little metaphor. I like that. Sure. But in Maine, they love their invertebrates like Susan Collins. You know what I'm saying? We're doing metaphors, right? Right. Yeah, because then also lobsters are invertebrates. Yeah, we went from surf to turf. They're bugs. They're kind of big bugs. If you think about a lobster, it's kind of like a big bug. They're big, gross bugs. Big, delicious bugs. You boil them alive. Hoping to keep all these occasional or new listeners after the election. But this kind of fucking get out of here. This is the show. Fuck off. You don't like it? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. No skin off my fucking back. Listen. No exoskeleton off my ass. Best part of the show is when it gets a little loopy.

1:14:57Yeah. I just want to be clear. You don't have to boil a lobster a lot. You take the lobster. You put it down. You take a knife. You go right in and you pull back. And then you boil it. Are you doing that? Yes. I've done it. I've done it, but do it again. Okay, great. It's not aesthetically pleasing, but it's more ethical. This is a tough process. Final thoughts, guys. This is the section called Final Thoughts. We've reached it. Got it. We generally prefer not to play pundit here. Who said that? Who wrote that? No. Who wrote that? You know what? It's my fault for not looking at this closely. This is on me. Wow. I got lazy at the end. We don't like to predict here. We, of course, play pundit.

1:15:35That's all we do. That's what we've done the whole fucking episode. Honestly, we're not playing pundit. We're living it. We are, yeah. The only thing I'm qualified to do. We wish we were playing. The whole world's a stage for us. We're living. Anyway, we generally do love, we like to live pundit here. Yeah. Live, laugh pundit. There's a dog named pundit. There's a dog named pundit in the room. We try not to do too many predictions, but we're going to do some, some sort of broader picture stuff at the end here. There's been some discussion about how anything less than winning both chambers will feel like a loss for Democrats at this point. Do you guys buy that? Yeah. Yeah. So much. Yeah. Expectations are fucked.

1:16:10Yeah. No, I'm sorry. Like, you know, play this if I try to say otherwise after in this environment with a president this despicable with an illegal war, with the tariffs, with the Republican Congress rubber stamping this ridiculous, vile, lawless administration, if we can't win both chambers, then yes, that will be a loss. Yeah. I think I like I'm not I'm not dodging it because you're like expectations is way out of control. And like Republicans will be crowing like, you know, forever if we don't win the Senate. But I really like it. To me, it's binary. Right. Like you it's about the consequences of winning the Senate or not or like the consequences don't win the Senate. But I really like it. To me, it's binary, right? Like you, it's about the consequences

1:16:46of winning the Senate or not, or like the consequences of not winning the Senate. Like we're probably going to win the House. Like I'm almost, Nate's up to like 95%, right? And everyone can look at the old Hillary chart in 2016. It was never at 95%, okay? So we get the House, no more Donald Trump legislation that Democrats don't approve so like that part of the presidency because he's been on a legislative tear yeah right yeah no more big one big beautiful bill right now that was terrible none of that shit um the senate it really like we get the senate we can hold off two supreme court one or two supreme court appointments and like dozens of other judges and if if we don't, Alito and Alito probably and

1:17:26maybe Thomas, then we're going to get two more justices that are like fucking, you know, Eileen Cannon or worse in their 30s for decades. So that to me is the is the binary in the Senate. Of course, that's why I would not just feel like a loss, but would be a loss. But I would also like I don't I think if we can win the Senate, that is it. That is an incredible feat given this environment. Right. And it wasn't that long ago that it looked, if not impossible, very, very difficult given the places we're talking about competing now. We're just we are the day before an election and we have a poll that has us up in some of the reddest states in the country. Like, that's remarkable. I hope they're right.

1:18:04But I also do worry. We just went through this Haley Stevens news cycle. I take Fetterman as word that he doesn't want to switch parties. I also don't wouldn't, you know, bet my life on it, especially when the way we have these arguments online. We definitely are not sort of, you know, coaxing. Right. There's a lot of like vitriol directed at Fetterman. These are people that are clearly very in line. Haley Stevens is clearly very online. I think John Fetterman is very online. And so, boy, 52-seat Senate really inures against that problem. I kind of think it's also it matters which red states we win or potentially lose here for long term, right? Like we have known since the Obama era that states like Iowa, Ohio,

1:18:44are like just moving away from Democrats just because of demographics long term. Like it's going to be harder and harder for Democrats to win Ohio, to win even Michigan and Pennsylvania like as we go on. If we – I mean we're going to win Georgia most likely, North Carolina. If we can also win Texas and then we – South Carolina, Mississippi? Right. Like if we start doing better – like that matters not just for the Senate. Like let's say we lose the Senate, right? But we win like Texas and North Carolina and – like that says for 28 and beyond that on the presidential level that we now can compete in some of these southern Sunbelt states in a real way that we couldn't before. And I think that would be like, if we lose Texas, if we lose all of them at once, then

1:19:30that's going to be fucking terrible. Not for nothing. Could you, like, look, we all feel pressure. No one wants to die. That's right. Okay. We all want to take care of ourselves, for ourselves, for our families. Could you imagine the pressure you feel to stay alive if you're a liberal judge in the Trump administration like on the Supreme Court? You are like on the treadmill. Get yourself in that bubble. You are crushing up Lipitor. You're listening to that guy that lives forever that talks about his life. Yeah, that guy measuring his son's erections. Yeah, that guy. You're making me remember when RBG did that wedding and performed that wedding. I remember during COVID there was some moment. She was planking or something. Yeah, yeah. Brian Johnson. You're making me remember when RBG did that wedding.

1:20:06Performed that wedding. Remember during COVID? There was some moment. She planking or something. Then there was that. I don't even remember that. Yeah. Oof. All right. Next question. I think pundit farted, by the way. I was just going to ask you. I'm like, you have to look on your face like pundit farted. Sure enough. It was pundit, Tommy. Blame the dog. It probably was her. She's doing that a lot. What is an outcome anywhere on the map or the whole outcome that would change something you believed about politics heading into the election? Full sweep would show the fever is broken completely. We got a broken fever. Kansas, South Carolina, Mississippi, for God's sake. New paradigm. Trump is over.

1:20:47Yeah. I would say that there's been this debate about Michigan and Abdul's performance in Michigan. And I think there's been these very kind of like polar questions about will he overperform or underperform more center left candidates? And who would be responsible if that were the case. Right. There's a lot of like there's a lot of people like pre score settling on this already, which I find very annoying. And it's like, hey, guys, this do you think we're not going to have time for score settling after the election? That's all that we'll have time to do. That's what cricket comes about. But I do think that if if Abdul runs close to Jocelyn Benson doesn't have to get right up next to Jocelyn Benson, doesn't have to get right up next to Jocelyn Benson, but doesn't kind

1:21:26of perform, I think, far under in the way that I think a lot of more center figures are predicting. I think that would tell you a lot about the left center, left dynamics going into the presidential. And I would definitely take that. I don't know, I would say that I'm like learning so much from that, but that would be a really important data point for understanding what comes next. I think if Democrats have a bad night, it would change my view about people voting with their pocketbooks. Like I can't remember an election where people have been like economic interests. Yeah. I mean, it's look, that has obviously been disconnected from a lot of polarization has helped disconnect that from people's voting habits for quite a while.

1:22:08But this is a situation specifically where it's not just unemployment rates. It's inflation that has hit everyone, plus the terror, plus the gas, like all of it. And if that does not do it, then that's going to be quite a signal. If Democrats have a great night, I think it's also going to change my view, which is also, it's started to shift a little bit about how important money is in politics because they have spent more money than God. And if the 200 million plus that they spent in just Texas alone doesn't do it, then I think it's going to tell us something about the value of spending a lot of money. Well, the next question on the outline, apologies for jumping ahead. Do it, let's go there. If money. Yeah, well, the next question on the outline, apologies for jumping ahead.

1:22:45Do it, let's go there. If results are worse, what's the cause? And my answer is repolarization. It's just a depressing sign that, especially lower term, midterm, like lower turnout midterms are about the team you're on more than anything else. And then the money, if Elon Musk can spend half a billion dollars in these races and the crypto industry can spend $200 million in these races, if that money can get Ken Paxton over the finish line, the most odious human being in the worst environment imaginable, it's a reminder that elections can be bought. And we're in like a very terrible post-Citizens United new paradigm here. Yeah. What about you, Lloyd? If we wake up to – everyone wakes up tomorrow morning,

1:23:26the results are worse than we expected. What happened? So first of all, it would be- Fewer people voted for Democrats. Yeah, that'd be for sure. You can't use that one. You can't use that one. So first of all, there would be a polling error, a really big polling error, which would once again tell you something about the electorate. And I think one thing that that would mean is that the midterm electorate actually did look more like a presidential than we realized. And it tells you something not just about polarization, but just for how people are engaging in politics, because it just would mean a lot of people, they're not responding to pollsters, they're not showing up in a lot of the data,

1:23:59but they were just ready to vote and that they're going to vote every two years, not just every four years. And we do have a huge low engagement population of people voting. And then I do think it would just have to be a lot of soul searching, not just about whether economic issues drive people, but it would be a real like I think like maybe as much as more than 24, which had, I think, a specific endogenous explanations would require a lot of soul searching about the failure of Democrats to be able to persuade people in an environment like this, right? Yeah. Here's what I think that's a little simpler and maybe more understandable for Democrats. So let's say the generic ballot polling is correct, right, nationally, and the whole country

1:24:44moves to the left. It's plus nine, right, and the whole country moves to the left, it's plus nine, right, and the whole country moves left. That still means that just based on fundamentals, Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Texas are still R plus, I think Nate has it, 0.3 to two, just to plus two on the simple fundamentals. So a huge, like the generic ballot polling was correct nationally. The whole country moved left. We win the House. But those states are still a little more Republican. And the Democratic candidate could not quite overcome that generic ballot. So that means – and that says something too that's tough because it's like these are more moderate candidates in those states. They have basically done everything that all the smart people have said that you do to win an arrest date, and they just couldn't get there.

1:25:30And then Cook had an interesting, in Amy Walter's final analysis piece, she put this in perspective. She's like, Democrats have to flip at least two seats that Donald Trump carried by double digits. Cook has five Republican-held Senate seats in the toss-up column that Trump carried by double digits. Cook has five Republican held Senate seats in the toss up column that Trump carried by more than 10 points, which is wild. No election in at least the last 16 years has seen the party in the White House lose more than one Senate seat that the president had carried by double digits. So like what we are, it is kind of like a both side, like if Democrats do great and win the Senate, it's like historic, right?

1:26:06If they lose, though, it will be because that just it rarely happens that the party out of power or that the president's party loses a Senate seat that he won by more than more than double digits. Yes. And that is certainly what would be the explanation, except go one step below that. Donald Trump is an extraordinary president. Of course. And I know you know that, but it's just like, hey, like, how did normal, how did we allow as a party, normal politics to prevail in an environment like that? And by the way, I wouldn't just be blaming Democrats. I think there'd be a lot of hand-wringing about Democrats. It's a societal problem that someone like Donald Trump is winning these states by 10 digits after

1:26:44launching an insurrection, right? Like there's a, there's a real like kind someone like Donald Trump is winning these states by 10 digits after launching an insurrection. There's a real culture that has allowed someone like Trump to rise, but we continue to struggle to make the case to people that he is an extraordinary threat and the people that enable him deserve to be held accountable. And that will continue to be the case when someone like J.D. Vance tries to run for president. Basically denying the version of Trump we all recognize is real. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think in the opposite scenario where we wake up and everything's wonderful and maybe Annie Andrews pulls it out in South Carolina or Scott Cuomo in Mississippi, right? Then it's

1:27:22a whole bunch of Republicans who voted in 24, stayed home. Some of them decided to vote Democrat. And a lot of these low propensity voters who either backed Trump in 24 or didn't vote in 24 just came out in droves because of costs, war, ICE in their communities, whatever it may be. That's the upside. Yeah. And I also think that has a big impact, potentially has a big impact on 28, because that tells you, to Tommy's point, that the bottom really has fallen out and something big is changing. Yeah. All right. That's our show for today. Reminder to tune into the live stream with Alex on the PSA YouTube channel. We will be back late, late tonight with our reaction to the results. Hopefully, we will still have this tone in our voices.

1:28:03Won't be. Although we've been... Basket cases. I don't have good memories of that in the past. I don't like elections. But we'll see. Keep your eye on our YouTube for any updates after that. Go vote. If you haven't already, bring your friends to vote. VoteSaveAmerica.com if you need any help. And we'll see you on the other side. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Michael Goldsmith with Ree Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heathcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kenny Moffitt, Adam Lippert, Joseph Dutra, Desmond Taylor, Dan Farrell, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single.

1:28:38Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Long play, our docu-series exploring the people and forces shaping the South is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri,

1:29:18former White House communications director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.