Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] WVUA FM, Tuscaloosa. Any opinions expressed in this program are those of the host and do not represent the thoughts or opinions of 90.7 WVUA or the University of Alabama.
[00:00:18] Hello, everybody, and welcome to season four, episode one of Pulse of the Nation. It's the season premiere. I'm Brayden Vick. As always, I am the host of Pulse of the Nation, and we are going to be taking a look at the nation, nation's most important political stories. Now, I haven't talked to y'all since April, and let's just say since April, there have been quite a few major political stories. So let's get the obvious out of the way. Joe Biden is no longer the democratic nominee for president.
[00:00:54] That is a situation that hasn't happened in 60 years.
[00:01:00] Let's just start there.
[00:01:03] That is one of the biggest political developments in modern american history.
[00:01:13] Let's just take a, let's just take a step back and just sort of realize the really insane moment in the historical context that we live in. All right. So, oh, if I, if only, if only I was here, right, to record these episodes during the summer. Like, of course, you know, like, I get out of school, finger for the summer, go back home, and then this, the most insane things happen, right? So let's just begin on June 27, 2024, right? First presidential debate. Atlanta, Georgia. Joe Biden versus, versus Donald Trump.
[00:02:00] And to say that Joe Biden had a bad debate performance would be maybe to say that the Carolina Panthers didn't have a great week one, it is one of the grossest understatements you could ever make. What I saw from Biden, oh, God. And this is me saying that coming from someone that has thought Joe Biden was a favorite before that and even after the debate performance. And I'll get to why I had thought that until around, like, July 4. I thought, you know, he was good to stay in.
[00:02:34] But, oh, my God, the first 15 minutes of that, I do not blame anybody for thinking that the election was wrapped up then and there because it's just like, bruh, like, I understand, you know, the guy on the other side is Donald Trump, and he still is. We'll get some more developments about him in a second. But I don't think you can blame anybody just watching the debate and thinking the majority of Americans aren't going to vote for this guy. And Joe, Joe Biden after the first 15 minutes. I mean, Lord.
[00:03:12] Yeah. Beating Medicare. We beat Medicare, everybody.
[00:03:19] Oh, Lord. Man, man, oh, man. That was a time. That was a period. In time, I will say that. And the thing is, right, it's not that Donald Trump had a good debate performance. He had a bad performance.
[00:03:34] Like, it was not pretty from Trump. But I don't know how Joe Biden managed it, but I don't know what they gave him before the debate. Apparently, he had a cold or something. I don't know. They had some sort of, like, dark, branded, you know, branded water or something that he drank. I don't know what he got in the system. I don't like, I don't know if he's just visually aging or not up to it or, like, whatnot, but, oh, my God, that was. That was pitiful. Like, I'm not gonna lie, that was pitiful. And I will be speaking about more pitiful debate performances soon, like, more towards the end of the episode, but, oh, wow, that was awful. Right? And so pretty much every single mainstream media outlet, I guess, except for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who called on Trump to drop out instead. Pretty much everybody in media wanted Biden caught. Right?
[00:04:30] And the reason why I thought Biden was good to stay in is just like, because debates don't matter. You know, Mitt Romney destroyed Barack Obama in the first presidential debate in 2012. And one of the presidential debates there, I think it was in October, and it didn't matter. Barack Obama ended up winning. Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in all three of the debates as voted on by the american public. Clinton still lost to Trump, so.
[00:04:56] And Joe Biden beat Trump in most of the debates in 2020, and Joe Biden barely won his presidential election. So it's just like, for me, I'm thinking these debates don't exactly matter. And I'm still wrath think I'm still vindicated in saying that these debates don't matter because the debates themselves, I don't think matter. The media's reaction matters. And how the media reacted to whatever that was from Joe Biden. Oh, my God. Like, I will say this, I do firmly believe that there is a lot of, let's just say there's been a lot of beef between the Biden White House and mainstream media, especially AG Sulzberger and the New York Times. I think I kind of explained this in, like, past episodes. But really, the point is, Biden defenders, Biden Whitehall saw things like, oh, because we won't give the New York Times their vaunted exclusive interview. That means they want it out on us. They want to get Donald Trump in office because he would get them ratings, he would get them views, he would put more money in their pockets, executives and journalists alike. That's the mode from Biden world. That's sort of where I fell in that campus. Like, oh, the media is just trying to get Trump elected because, you know, Trump's better for ratings. That was for the first week. And then, like, there's, then I, the party decided it took a few weeks.
[00:06:33] This was a brutal fight in the Democratic Party. You remember all these stories of these democratic representatives and even some senators saying, you know what, I love you, Joe Biden, but it's time to go.
[00:06:48] Because at this point, these Democrats are thinking, this guy's not only going to lose the Trump, he's going to lose badly, so badly that Democrats in safe seats and safe states might start being in danger of losing the re election.
[00:07:02] That was the emphasis. This is like, look, the feeling was, this guy can't win. And I disagree. I do think if Biden were to be in the race, he would be around 50 50.
[00:07:13] Like, it wouldn't be a total loss, I don't think. But that would be what the media thinks everyone would be thinking, basically, except for me and a few other deranged morons on the Internet that, you know, oh, Biden stole the chance.
[00:07:28] But good Lord, that whole period between June 27 to July 21, some of the most insane things were happening.
[00:07:42] And during this time, during this time, towards the end of the saga where you, like, like, then Donald Trump gets shot. Like, can we, like, again, step back for a moment.
[00:08:04] Let's not forget Donald Trump nearly got killed at a rally of Butler, Pennsylvania, by some deranged 20 year old lunatic.
[00:08:15] The guy who's a, this, who was the same, a giant or was at the time, you know, that, you know, he, you know, committed, committed a crime for which he is.
[00:08:27] I mean, God knows where his soul is. Don't think it's anywhere good. But, yeah, like, Trump got his ear, grace. And if he hadn't turned it, like, just before, like, we would have seen a presidential candidate, the guy who most people thought was going to end up being the president January 20, 2025, at the time, nearly get turned into goo on national television.
[00:08:56] Like, think about that.
[00:08:59] Like, we were so close to absolute chaos because at this time, Trump hadn't we, no idea what Trump was gonna do with this vice presidential nominee. Was he gonna pick Doug Bergam and Nikki Haley type? Was he gonna pick Glenn Youngkin for more Virginia Vance type? Like, we didn't know that at the time. And Trump made a decision yet. No indications that he had at that point in time. So, like, if the worst case scenario would have happened, the Republican National Convention was a week after what it's worth.
[00:09:32] And if worse comes to worse, in that situation, that republican national convention, oh, my God, Milwaukee would genuinely have been a war. The ficer form in particular, would have been a war zone.
[00:09:49] Like, oh, my goodness, like, who would have come out of that contested convention? I genuinely have no idea. But hypotheticals are hypotheticals for a reason. Donald Trump survived the attempt on his life, became officially became the republican nominee, and the republican nominee for vice president was picked, Senator JD Vance of Ohio. He is famous for writing hillbilly elegy, or elegy, however you pronounce it, I am not sure. But this guy did that. He's been a senator for only a couple years. This is really first couple years in any political, major political service, and he gets tapped by Trump because Donald Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Junior, as well as Elon Musk, really, really, really push for JD Vance. Now, JD Vance is really a product of, you know, of Peter Thiel. This sort of. I don't know how to explain Peter Thiel, but he's trying to get sort of budding right wing political machine success stories, if you could call it that, include Blake Masters. So you know how I feel about, you know, Peter Thiel's successes, which I believe are very minimal. Blake Masters can't even win a congressional primary these days. But that's another, you know, story for another time. But JD Vance, right at the point in time in which he is nominated, which he accepts the nomination, he would be favored by most, God and everybody to be second in line to the present. Considering Donald Trump is advanced age, he's 77, 78 years old himself. And considering the fact Trump himself would be in his eighties when he. If he had completed that term, then there would be a realistic chance, you know, if Trump were to win, that JD Vance would end up serving capacity as president.
[00:11:41] The unfortunate thing for JD is, uh, well, let me not sugarcoat it. He's been the worst vice presidential pick in american history. Like, the literal worst. And it's not even close. Like, oh, my God, I'm not even talking about the childless cat lady comments. I'm not talking about, you know, accusations that he only, you know, from Democrats and he only views women as, you know, baby making machines or whatever, you know, favoring a national ban on a total national ban on abortion or anything of that nature or any of the other comments he's made or whatnot.
[00:12:20] But I just want to look at the numbers, like, get the messaging, get the ideology out of the way. I just want to look at the numbers. He is the most unpopular vice presidential pick out the gate in american history.
[00:12:31] Now, the one thing for a vice president. Now, vice presidential candidates don't really help a presidential candidate. Like, sometimes you could pick from a home state effect or regional effect. JD Vance was picked from Ohio. Midwest, rural midwesterners, white midwesterner straining Republican. Apparently they're going to part JD Vance in Pennsylvania, like Michigan and Wisconsin this whole time, the blue wolf states.
[00:12:56] Because at this point in time, you have to understand the outlay of the map, which I disagree with at the time and disagree with now, is that the Trump campaign had assumed that the Sunbelt locked Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and that they only needed to pick off one of the three blue wall states, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, in order to win.
[00:13:19] Like, that was a failing in the Trump camp. That was a feeling amongst most democrats, too. So the failing was with Vance. You park him in Pennsylvania, you go there, you win that, you win the presidency. And most people still think that Pennsylvania is the most critical swing state. I'm not sure which one's the most critical swing state. Personally. I do think Pennsylvania's up there, though.
[00:13:39] But.
[00:13:41] Oh, JD, Vince, I'm sorry. So sorry.
[00:13:46] Look, Sarah Palin at least helped John McCain in Alaska.
[00:13:54] I'm not sure JD Vance is going to help Donald Trump in Ohio. Granted, there is a very competitive, crucial Senate seat democrats have to win, have any chance of retaining the US Senate under that godly, unfavorable map. And your thought was JD Vance might help Bernie Moreno beat Sherrod Brown in Ohio and further lock up the US Senate.
[00:14:16] And if they do win Ohio, I do think republicans do secure the Senate in the Senate race, but I'm not exactly sure that JD Vance is exactly helping.
[00:14:26] The democratic nominee's campaign has basically made an ad mockery out of JD Vance and everything that he has had to say on these random. Which, by the way, this is why podcasts are important people.
[00:14:43] Like, I'm telling you that podcasts do serve at least some purpose in american political discourse, y'all.
[00:14:51] Oh, lord. Speaking of the new democratic nominee for president. So this is basically the weekend after the Republican National Convention, Republicans take their victory lap. It's a convention where they not only think they're gonna win, but they know they're going to win.
[00:15:08] Then on Sunday, like the Sunday after the convention, Biden drops out, he just puts out a tweet.
[00:15:15] That's it. I'm going to drop it out of the race, and then 15 minutes later, he endorses his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the democratic nominee for president.
[00:15:23] And that's that. Biden's gone. And within the span of 24 hours, Kamala Harris secures enough support to become the presumptive democratic nominee, and that's that. And then the vice presidential pick. I think this is probably one of the most scrutinized and criminologized, if you could put it that way, vice presidential selection processes in modern american history, because this is so unusual. You know, a sitting president of the United States dropping out of a, dropping out of his own reelection bit and having the vice president take his place, something that hasn't happened in 60 years, I will admit, like, a lot of us are listening. We're not even alive. And even more of us wouldn't have remembered, you know, 1968, and Hubert Humphrey ended up running against Richard Nixon.
[00:16:22] Now we have Kamala Harris. She is a democratic nominee for president. And this vice presidential process, let me just take it down to the studs a little bit to the beginning. It's like, oh, well, who's going to be your vice president? There are a lot of contenders. There are. Pennsylvania's governor Josh Appere was a strong pick early on. So is Kentucky's governor, Andy Bashir. So is North Carolina's governor, Roy Cooper. And that's how you pronounce it. Cooper. Not Cooper. Cooper. Right. Got, there was one other guy who came from basically out of left field, more of a dark horse pick in the beginning, but this is why he called it abuse, because if you're Jocelyn, it's like, hey, you know, you might be term limited after this year. And it's like, well, it would be nice to be the vice president. Enter Tim Walls. And he is the guy. He goes on MSNBC and calls JD Vance weird. And basically the entire democratic party runs with it to label the republican party as weird. And that was, that was Tim Wells is doing like, he calls JD Vance weird. The party follows suit. Like, oh, this guy's got something about him. Then progressives latch onto it because here's the thing. What happens? Cooper drops out early because he's fearful that, you know, if he goes out and campaigns and God knows whatever Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson might do and try to pass a lot of GOP policy signing into law, whatnot. Mark Robinson, by the way, is a very controversial, very unpopular lieutenant governor in North Carolina. He's running for the governorship against democratic attorney General Josh Stein. Stein is a clear, clear favorite over Mark Robinson, for what it's worth, a very clear favorite stock.
[00:18:16] But Cooper drops out her right. And there are rumors that, you know, he, he had the closest relationship to Kamala Harris. They'd served together as attorneys general for a while. And no, that sort of personal connection. It matters in a vice presidential selection. If he hadn't dropped out, there was a feeling that, you know, Harris probably would have picked him. There is dismay reportedly in Harris camp when Cooperative dropped out of the stakes. They have Kentucky's governor, Andy Bashir. He kind of flails in his media appearances a little bit, kind of stilted, kind of awkward or something. He kind of. He falls off the map. So he's out.
[00:18:58] Then it's Shawshapiro and it's Tim Walls. And there was a little bit of an ideological battle going on that Tim Walls was a favorite pick of progressives and those on the left because Tim Walls, you know, had in 20 from 2023 to 2024. This is only possible, by the way, because Democrats narrowly secured a statewide trifecta, the governorship, the state House, and the state senate, very narrowly in the state House and the state Senate, by the way. And what had ended up happening was a whole loop of progressive and, you know, liberal policy preferences and agendas get passed. They get signed into law. A whole sleuth of them. Like, I could probably go for ten minutes if I had them all, you know, listed out. We could read all about it. But a lot of it's like, stronger voting protections, making Minnesota a trans refuge state. You know, there's also, like, increased, you know, funding for more housing and whatnot. And, you know, you know, you know, making Minnesota more of, like, state of refugee, being sort of a not really a sanctuary state, but just sort of more welcoming to refugees, protecting rights of abortion, healthcare and all this stuff.
[00:20:18] Lots and lots and lots of stuff gets passed by Tim walls to sign in the law.
[00:20:24] And increasingly because granted, on the Palestine issue, which is, I think, where the biggest ideological divide comes from in this situation, Tim wall spoke of the uncommitted movement. We discussed that in season three. He discussed the uncommitted movement as a group whose voices want to be heard and whose voices need to be heard from, whereas Josh Shapiro isn't exactly too fond of palestinian side of the issue. And that's kind of what I think. Like, it gets thorny because Joshua Pierre is jewish.
[00:21:02] And it's like if you go, if you're online too much or if you're, like, you read, like, about the situation. It's very easy to say, you know, oh, they don't want Josh Shapiro to be vice president because he's jewish and, you know, all this sort of stuff. It's very easy for criticism of Josh Shapiro and his pro Israel policies to veer into anti semitism. And sometimes online, it did just flat out. It did like, you know, this comes out about, oh, he served in the IDF for a couple months, like a volunteer, sort of a school project kind of thing. I'm not exactly sure, but it comes out, he doesn't exactly have the best views towards Palestinians, gets accused of being racist towards them, whatnot. And just sort of all this comes out. Progressives really, really, really do not in Muslims. They do not want Josh Shapiro to be the vice presidential pick. People who defend him, not just parisian people and moderates, but also people who proclaim that they just want to win the election over everything else. They think, okay, Josh Shapiro is the VP nominee. We can deal with the increased fervor against us from the left just so long as we secure Pennsylvania. Because the one thing you need to know, Josh Shapiro is incredibly popular in Pennsylvania. Incredibly popular. Like, I get that he was running against a paper candidate in far right, Doug Mastriano in 2022, but Josh Shapiro won by nearly 15 points or something like that.
[00:22:36] And Shapiro has built an incredibly popular brand in Pennsylvania. Lots of Trump Republicans like this guy.
[00:22:47] So you're thinking, okay, he has a personal popularity. You pick him, you lock up Pennsylvania, you win the election.
[00:22:56] But those electoral concerns, ideological concerns, that's not what fueled Kamala Harris decision because there was another candidate for vice president, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. There also electoral concerns could help lock up Arizona. Kelly is pretty popular in the state of Arizona. He won his last election there, five points over the aforementioned Blake Masters.
[00:23:21] And, you know, also, you know, the veteran, you know, that could be played very well in regards to, regards to that vote. And what ultimately ends up happening is, you know, Kelly ends up finishing third in the sweepstakes. So it's still in Tim Waltz and Josh Pierre. What ends up deciding these things is it's not just the fact that, oh, you want to win election, but the thing is you have to establish your rapport with them because you're not just campaigning with somebody for, like, three months. If you win, you have to serve. You know, you have to serve with them for four years. You have to eat lunch with them every week. You have to. You have to deal with them. You have to have a sort of personal and social connection.
[00:24:06] And Tim Wells did and Joshua didn't. Because as far as this thing goes, the thing with Joshapiro, this guy is not a number two. This guy is a number one. This guy wants to be president.
[00:24:22] People call him Baruch Obama for a reason. Like, this guy is the jewish Barack Obama. Even the way he imitates Barack Obama, which is a good thing to do, you know, imitating Barack Obama on the campaign trail, like, the cadence, the way he sounds and whatnot.
[00:24:40] And like, Josh Shapiro wants to be president of the United States, and he will be a formidable presidential candidate somewhere down the line.
[00:24:49] Tim Walls does not want to be president.
[00:24:52] Whereas Tim Walls was saying, you know, how can I help you? How can I be of assistance to ticket your service as president? John Shapiro was talking about responsibility.
[00:25:03] What responsibilities will I get? What responsibilities will you have? And Josh Shapiro, that's not exactly great to build a rapport with, you know, a person who you want to be the president.
[00:25:16] And so Kamala Ayers chooses Tim Wallace, progressive, sheer. Yay, you didn't pick Shapiro.
[00:25:23] And Tim Wallace is also from Minnesota. There are some electoral benefits. Tim, as well. You know, he's a white guy from the upper midwest. He grew up in West Point, Nebraska, you know, and I think in Cherry county, if I remember correctly, he went to Mankato State University, coached Mankato West High School. I think a defensive coordinator taught there as well. And just sort of, sort of folks see background has been really elevated by Kamala Harris and her campaign. And it's a Harris Walls campaign at this point. You have the new signs, new merch and everything. And I do want to say this before we move on to anything else, the vibe shift around the Democratic Party and its nominee for president. Crazy, right? Because look, on the comments of, like, Joe when it was. When it was, you know, Biden HDD buying a haters hq or Biden HQ on TikTok, and there will be, like, blue Hearts and then people calling him a genocide hater and then Kamala Harris TikToks when it's Kamala HQ, completely different.
[00:26:36] And I want to say this, it's not just that Kamala Harris seems to be well to the left of Joe Biden in regards to Israel Palestine.
[00:26:49] It's not just that Kamala Harris is over 20 years younger than Joe Biden. Kamala Harris is not even in her sixties. I think she's 59 years old. Tim Walls is 60.
[00:27:00] But I will say this most importantly, Democrats have a candidate that the majority of the party thinks can win. A vast majority of the party thinks can win and will win because expectations are so important. Like a lot of people, you know, with low engagement, with the low propensity, voters will think of this as sort of an investment. You know, Joe, say, like, get into the business mind of something. Like, no matter which party you lean or if you don't lean to a party at all or lean to a third party or whatever, but you, in voting one of the two major party candidates, you don't really like, know much about them, or maybe you don't really like them, but you agree more with them than the other, and you're thinking of it as an investment. All right?
[00:27:56] And a major part of that investment is, do I think this person can win?
[00:28:01] If you don't think that you're the, the candidate of the party that you lean towards is going to win, why bother voting for that person if they're just going to lose anyways? And for, especially for a person you don't really like, regardless, like, that was the issue with Joe Biden and an issue that Kamala Harris had brought up in private. It's not that you're losing to Trump, it's that you're losing to the couch. And that's what the polls were capturing around that time, was democratic enthusiasm.
[00:28:33] No, just, no, it did not exist.
[00:28:38] And that's why Biden was down, but so big in a lot of these polls.
[00:28:43] And now the democratic enthusiasm is up even above republican levels these days.
[00:28:50] And Kamala Harris now has a healthy lead in the national polls as a result.
[00:28:55] And now a sort of vibe shows shift has gone from, oh, this is a certain Trump victory to, oh, Kamala Harris not only can win, but may actually be the favorite. Now, Kamala Harris campaign will say that they're the underdogs, but let me make something extremely clear. She is not the underdog. She is the favorite to win this presidential election. I'll get into further detail as to why, but she's the favorite. Like, no bones about it.
[00:29:22] How has Donald Trump responded, responded to all this, from nearly getting assassinated to Biden dropping out, Kham layers coming in.
[00:29:35] Let's just say he's not responded. Well.
[00:29:38] I mean, if you take a look at the conference, Seattle, the National association of Black Journalists in Chicago, I think that the republican candidacy, the party itself and the Trump campaign is in a little bit of chaos because they're not sure what to do. Like they were for. They built their campaign apparatus towards beating Joe Biden.
[00:30:08] All intents and purposes, they had a pretty effective one. Problem is Joe Biden's not there. And now Donald Trump's acting like the joker to Biden's Batmandeh. And it's been very intriguing to watch. Let me go ahead and say that the other issue with the Trump campaign is, where's your ground game?
[00:30:34] I'm looking for it. I cannot really seem to find much of it because they don't have, have much. They have some offices, sure. But it's like, this is a candidacy. This is a campaign that was thinking of trying to make plays to flip Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia.
[00:30:56] That is certainly not happening anymore. I mean, you had a Trump deputy campaign manager in Massachusetts directly, just south of New Hampshire, be fired because a memo got leaked, which he sent, which directed, which said that the Trump campaign was directing its New Hampshire volunteers to abandon the reference to New Hampshire, no longer considering it a battleground state and to move all their operations to Pennsylvania.
[00:31:26] And this, that broke, I think, about a couple weeks ago.
[00:31:30] And I'm just sitting here as far as New Hampshire is concerned, we'll put it to New Hampshire for a second because they just had a primary to nominate candidates, you know, and the governor's race, which is one I'll focus on in particular, Kelly Ayotte, the former GOP nominee for Senate in 2016, lives in very nearly that election. She gets easily nominated over former New Hampshire state Senate president Chuck Morris. It's very easy, comfortable win. Chuck Morris only wins some towns and some really gob towns in the southeast, you know, and like west of Rockingham county or whatnot.
[00:32:02] The democratic nomination is a lot closer. But again, it's the southeast that ends up deciding. Joyce Craig, the mayor of Manchester, beats Cindy Warmington on, I think, the executive council to become the democratic nominee for governor because Joyce Craig, I think it was like five to seven points. Craig won those to the population centers, and that was enough for a win.
[00:32:27] So we have it, Joyce Craig versus Kelly Ayotte, and what is considered to be a tossed of race. If the Trump campaign is pulling out of New Hampshire, aren't you just putting the New Hampshire Republican Party to the wayside in an election that is so very critical for them, for their party? Because it's not just the governorship you have to defend. You have to defend increasingly tenuous state Senate and state House majorities, which, by the way, I need to talk about the fact New Hampshire has like 400 members in their state house for a, you have 2 million people.
[00:33:01] You don't need that many. Many. I'm not sure if there's like 400 for something large or insane like that. But, bro, like, hundreds of people, like, this is a state of like, not even 2,000,002 congressional districts.
[00:33:16] You have that many. It's like 4000 maybe. Like, you don't need that many. Just downsize, just shrink it.
[00:33:27] Like, I don't know, like 4000. I swear, I don't think it's 4000. If there was a 4000 member, like state House. Oh, my God, I don't even want to know. I don't even want to know. But those majorities for whatever, 400, but in the state House. But it's, they're incredibly tenuous.
[00:33:48] There is a chance that the Democrats could go from having nothing to having a statewide trifecta.
[00:33:53] And if you're just gonna leave New Hampshire high and dry, isn't that just gonna help? Joyce Craig?
[00:34:00] Like, I don't get it. I just do not get it whatsoever. Like, I know that New Hampshire isn't a battle route. State spoilers. It never was.
[00:34:11] It was always going to go to the democratic nominee for president. But I don't know why you'd point pull out.
[00:34:20] Shannon Sharp certainly didn't. Why are you?
[00:34:25] I know Pennsylvania is a critical swing state, but I just don't get the lack of focus on the down ballot, which is all the more concerning when you consider that most of the Trump team's ground game has been outsourced. Source to turning Point USA.
[00:34:47] And if you've read any stories about turning Point USA and their ground game, I think this was out of like Arizona or Nevada or something. The one I'm remembering, I think, is a story from a couple of years ago.
[00:34:58] And when they were supposed to be canvassing, some of the people were just, I think, out there, like their cars, like eating, like fast food or something, like, not actually trying to canvass voters in a critical state. I think this was in Nevada for out of black salt, if I remember correctly, he lost nearly to Catherine Cortez Masto in 2022. Like, if you have people like that slacking off from the job and you're outsourcing your ground game to that, especially, especially because, remember, in 2020, you know, Democrats had no ground game just because of COVID They didn't want to catch the virus. They were a lot more mindful of the virus than the Republicans were. Republicans really didn't care about the virus too much or catching it. They did the ground game. Republicans laughed. Democrats in the ground game. That's part of why Donald Trump was able to overperform the poll so much and nearly end up winning the election. He nearly won he didn't win, but he nearly, nearly did.
[00:35:59] People don't appreciate that, how close it was enough.
[00:36:05] But Democrats are the ones that have the significant ground game advantage now.
[00:36:12] And if I'm the Republican Party, right, like, looking at the state right now, we're in the middle of September. It's post Labor Day. This is the heat of election season. You know, when this episode comes out, people are already going to begin to start thinking about voting by mail because, like, the week after this comes out, people will start voting in the general election. I think some may already have in Pennsylvania.
[00:36:41] I'm not sure, you know, and I'm not sure if that's actually, like, true or whatnot, but Pennsylvania particular is going to be a state to watch early on. But as we actually start to count not Nepal numbers, but actual votes in this general election and find the Trump campaign and my coalition, like your campaign manager, Suzy Wallace, Chris La Civeta, think you're going to increasingly rely on low propensity voters, particularly low propensity male voters of all stripes. There's a famous quote for, like, for every k run we lose, we're going to earn a cemal and a navrique. What if Ceballa Navike don't turn out to vote like women do? Usually tend to turn out at higher rates than men and register to vote at higher rates than men, for what it's worth. So you're not off to a great start there if you're outsourcing your ground game to turning Point USA, who don't exactly have the best track record. Meanwhile, democratic local, state, and national parties, as well as the Harris Falls campaign are putting an emphasis on it.
[00:37:48] There is a situation that arises where the conditions are there, potentially for Trump to underperform his polling. And we also can't forget about the weather because, good lord, the weather. Remember the Iowa caucuses, back when people thought Ron DeSantis had a chance and it was snowing, it was cold in Iowa, and that definitely, I think, lower turnout there. But, like, it's gonna be in November. Snow's gonna be happening somewhere. Probably rain is gonna be happening somewhere. I mean, time of recording. We just got rain, you know, Thursday as a result of France scene. So just like, you never know, like, if you're going to increasingly rely on a lower propensity coalition than what you had in previous elections, that becomes a risk. Because, look, Donald Trump has been the republican nominee for president, like, ever since 2016. It's been eight years. He's been on ballots nearly a decade you have to wonder if exhaustion is starting to set in. And I'm not talking about the republican base who will vote for him every election, six times and on Sunday if they could.
[00:39:03] I'm talking about the other ones, the people who didn't vote in the primaries and the Nikki Haley voters.
[00:39:11] Because it's not just the potentiality of Nikki Haley voters switching to Kamala Harris and college educated suburbs across the country, which I'll talk more about college educated suburbs later in the season.
[00:39:25] But it's also those people who never going to vote for a Democrat in their lives, but just do not want Donald Trump to lead their party. And if they think he's going to lose to Kamala Harris, especially, you get into a danger zone, which is like, why would we vote for a guy we don't like and we think is going to lose?
[00:39:50] At that point, sort of a protest vote can be put in. You vote for, like, chase salove or libertarian. You can vote for Constitution party, Americana Solidarity Party if they're on the ballot. Or you could just not vote the presidential race at all, or in any race just lodged protest vote by not voting.
[00:40:10] As much as it was a danger for Democrats and kinda still potentially is, it's also a threat for the Republicans now.
[00:40:20] And that is a danger that I don't think that Trump and his team are reckoning with right now. Because in their eyes, they think they have the votes. They think they've had the votes for months. I just, in their eyes, if there's no fraud, there's no chance we lose.
[00:40:41] But what if you do?
[00:40:44] What if you do?
[00:40:46] Because one thing to remember is that Donald Trump isn't just running to be president.
[00:40:52] He's got a lot of criminal cases on his back. He's like, oh, I'll beat the cases until election day. If I can win the election, I can get these cases off my back and do whatever I want to do as president.
[00:41:04] But what if you lose?
[00:41:07] What if you lose?
[00:41:11] I think Donald Trump is sort of kind of come to terms. He doesn't want to come to terms with it, but he's definitely thought about it, you know, especially in the wake of his own mortality. Like, what if I lose? What if all of this is for naught?
[00:41:27] That's the thing that will tear out. So you get desperate, you know, no taxes on overtime pay, no taxes on tips or whatever. You start to get desperate, throw out things, this, this, this and that. Like, I'm gonna vote for the, you know, legalization of marijuana referendum. You know, I'm gonna say, I'm going to imply I'm going to vote for amendment four and then backtrack when pro life groups start hunting me down for it, which that's another thing. This is kind of an awkward tightrope around abortion because I'm not sure Donald Trump actually opposes abortion personally, and pro life groups and organizers do. So that's just been kind of a weird subplot.
[00:42:10] And where that leaves us now is a state of the race right now. Essentially the week before people start voting in earnest, voting by mail, you know, military ballots, whatnot.
[00:42:26] It's crunch time, people. It's crunch time. You know, start to, it's starting to be campaign season. People going out, multiple rallies a day. On Thursday, Kamala Harris did rallies in Charlotte, Greensboro, North Carolina, on September 18, Trump's going to do a rally in Union Dale, New York, which you might be thinking, why on God's green earth? Or Trump during a rally, New York, do they still think they can flip New York? No. The reason for he's having that rally there is to try and save Representative Anthony Despacito, New York's fourth congressional district. That's, I think, the most Biden voting district that Republicans hold. You can thank Kathy Hochul and Jacobs of the New York Democratic Party for that, by the way, in 2022. I still, I still have not forgotten that. And Jacobs should. Honestly, if you care about electoral competence, you should not like J. J.
[00:43:18] But that's another story for another time.
[00:43:21] This story of 2024, this is a story of now.
[00:43:26] It's the story of in less than 60 days, you know, we are going to know, you know, which, how this thing is going to end. And we might not. There might be still more developments after the election like there was in 2020. There probably will be. But at least know who's going to be the president. January 20, 2025, in less than two months.
[00:43:49] I know. I've been talking about 2024 for years now all of a sudden, look, it is here, y'all. It is here.
[00:43:58] And let's just start out with something, because we have about 15 minutes before we got to wrap this up.
[00:44:07] So let's just start off with the fact I think Kamala Harris is the favorite, 20 clear favorite, but not a prohibited favorite. Remember 2016 and even remember 2020.
[00:44:18] I think that, of course, look, seven critical battleground states, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.
[00:44:28] I honestly think Harris is favored in all seven to some extent. And let me go. Why? First, the blue wall. Wisconsin is a state where Colin Harris been pulling the best. God knows why.
[00:44:39] And I do think the polls are overestimating Kamala Harris. Instead of winning by four, I think she might win by, like, you know, one or two, but still an improvement over 2020, even if she does win by a poll.
[00:44:51] And I gotta tell you why, because Ben Whickel and the Wisconsin Democratic Party have made it a mission to limit rural losses. Wisconsin has a lot of rural white midwesterners, and these areas have kind of been swinging to the right a little bit, but, you know, may still be a little bit more liberal down ballot, especially sort of these ballot referendums that Wisconsin Democrats have been excellent, you know, in winning these Supreme Court, you know, state supreme court elections that Democrats have gotten really good at winning. See, I think literally the first episode of bolts of the nation, half of it was dedicated to one of those elections with Janet Percevich beating Dan Kelly. But that focus in rural areas, having these like, rural field offices like Baraboo, which that's a baraboo, that's in Salt county, that's a Swain county, which I'll discuss that, that all these twin counties more. But even in areas like Trump won by like 2030 points, Wisconsin Democrats likely have a field office there for this campaign. And obviously there's state legislative elections. You have new maps which were drawn up, which should, which should be, you know, more representative of the Wisconsin policy. Democrats thinking, oh, we have a chance to, you know, if obviously break any republican chance at a supermajority, but maybe grab a chamber or two. And these real spirited races, Wisconsin Democrats running across the state and Ben Wicklist would be thinking, we hold these row losses down while continuing to gain in Madison and Dane county, continuing to gain in Milwaukee suburbs, Waukesha, Washington and Ozawkey counties.
[00:46:35] In those areas, the college educated suburbs, historically german, historically some of the most conservative in the state, in the nation, and they've been swinging left, especially Ozawki and Waukesha, which are the two to really focus on, especially Ozawki that probably will be competitive if GOP leading. In fact, you say that about Ozawki, though not exactly a good place to be, especially in the regard like 2028, 2032, especially if you're an Ozawkey County Republican. Oof, man.
[00:47:11] But obviously there's a US Senate race there. Comment senator Tammy Baldwin should be Eric hub DMI Baldwin's a strong incumbent. Eric Hubd is not exactly, I don't think the best candidate Tory Republicans could have put up. But you run his primary award. Well, when we snowed there is that you probably still lose the Tammy Baldwin convincingly.
[00:47:30] And then there's Michigan.
[00:47:32] You know, Michigan has been a lot in the news because that's where Dearborn is. That's where ham traffick is. Lots of, lots of Muslims. You know, the theory is, oh, you know, Kamala Harris is gonna lose because they're gonna protest the Democratic Party of a Gaza. News flash, those areas do not have enough votes to make up the difference that Trump needs to make up.
[00:47:54] If losing Michigan, there are a lot of other issues both in the state and nationwide that you've got to handle that are going to be the cause of that. It won't be because of Gaza. Remember, Biden won Michigan by three points. I think it was about 150,000 vote gap or something that Trump has to make up.
[00:48:17] Here's the thing about Dearborn. Think about ham chamick. A lot of those people vote in democratic primaries, are socially conservative. And as people get stratified, hyper polarized on these social lines, where you fall on social issues, I want to tell you something. 2022, Gretchen Whitmer and these statewide Democrats, they won by a lot like double digits in Michigan. There is still a 30 to 40 point right wing swings in East Dearborn. In particular were the areas with lots of Muslims as a social conservative, Muslims, they swung to Republicans. So you can win with those localized swings. And plus, let's not forget about Oakland County, Michigan. Let's not forget about Kalamazoo. Let's not forget about Grand Rapids, Kent county. Let's not even forget about Ottawa county, which is another one of those historically conservative counties now bolting to the left. Still gob leading, but nowhere near where it was even a decade ago, three decades ago. And of course, you have the Lansing areas where you have to watch out for, and the cherry coast, grand Traverse, and those areas south of the upper peninsula that are going to swing left. And one or maybe in a couple of those counties, flip, you know, from red to blue, especially, you know, especially in Traverse City. And in Grand Traverse county, there are a lot of areas for Democrats to gain. There are some areas for Republicans to gain, too, in Michigan. But people don't realize the sort of really ladder the Republicans have to climb in Michigan, including most people in mainstream media, they get paid very well for their political analysis. I'm gonna tell you, a lot of it's not up to par, and I'm being nice.
[00:50:05] So let me explain why I would think comma Harris is favorite in Pennsylvania. Because, let's be quite Frank, Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania, the suburbs in particular, it's not just Allegheny County, Philadelphia county and southeast Pennsylvania. It's also Chester, it's Delaware, it's Montgomery to us percent buckshe. If you look at south central Pennsylvania, Dolphin County, Harrisburg is becoming a democratic stronghold. Cumberland county to the west is becoming competitive. And even in areas like Lancaster in York, Democrats are starting to gain. There is a highly competitive congressional district there, Pennsylvania's 10th. We have Scott Perry, the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus. He's running against I think a tv anchor and Janelle Stelson. And that race has gone under the radar. But that could become very competitive.
[00:50:56] Obviously a Pennsylvania 17th in like Beaver and parts of Allegheny counties and then Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district in the northeast of the state, which are also going to be highly competitive. Pennsylvania 7th as well below the 8th, that would be highly competitive as well. To look at Allentown, if you look at Easton, look at even towns like state College and Erie, Erie county is going to be very competitive. Again, toss up, but Commonwealth Harris, I think looking at the polling, looking at actual elections where they indicate things might be going, think Harris is up by a couple in Pennsylvania as far as Georgia is there. This is one of Trump's best polling states. Why I think Kamal Harris is up in Georgia. Simple. Atlanta.
[00:51:36] It's simple. It's Atlanta. The southern suburbs are becoming blacker. The northern suburbs a lot of are becoming more diverse. They're very college educated. Like you can't think that Trump is going to win Georgia without expecting him to get a really generational rightward shift among black voters. And I don't think that's going to happen. So I think the polls are underestimating Kamala Harris in Georgia. Think also in Arizona, because again, a lot of college educated suburbs. For Trump to win Arizona, he need like another like 1020 point rightward swing amongst latino voters and spoilers. It's not going to happen.
[00:52:11] And I'm not just talking about Phoenix or the East Valley, I'm talking Tucson's flagstaff as well. Like Trump will probably also need a significant rightwork shift amongst native american voters, which not as extra going to happen either. So if polls are interest rated or in Arizona as well, Nevada is worth the trick. I think Charis is up. I only think she's up at a point. I really think Nevada is one of the best opportunities for republicans to flip a state as far as a presidential election goes, low college education rates. If republicans are getting generational swings, much like, like black voters, more swings amongst latino voters or asian voters. And what we felt in Nevada, especially in Clark county, you know, a lot of these suburbs and exurbs like you would have to find that there.
[00:52:55] But an increasing problem for the republican county will be in Reno and in Sparks and Washoe county, because here's the thing about Natalia. You have Washoe county in the northwest, a ton of not very populated by 60 rules. And then there's Clark County. Clark county dominates the states where Las Vegas is, and the metro completely dominates the state's politics and whatnot. Then you have Reno. That's becoming more and more of a democratic base, even though the county is still pretty competitive. And that's been able to keep Democrats afloat mostly into that, because if Wash street becomes a bit bluer, you can offset some losses in Clark county. Not a lot, but offset some. Sometimes you need to offset some losses in order to win the state. Plus, the re machine is still around, the culinary union and whatnot. So that's why I've heard a favor in Nevada as far as North Carolina is concerned.
[00:53:48] I've got to tell you. North Carolina, North Carolina, that is the state that Democrats are trying to target. And I'm going to be quick because there's a few more things I want to talk before we get out of here. And it is going to be a tough climb for Democrats to flip North Carolina, not just because of it being a very rural state, and there are a lot of, like, r by 50 dense, rural, you know, Randolph County, Pennsylvania, is a great example, but, you know, there is a sort of deep population, northeast North Carolina, among and amongst heavily black areas. And those areas are shifting to the right as a result, offering Democrats less of a firewall. Reason for hope for Democrats in North Carolina is not just because of the new energetic party chair in Anderson Clayton, who's only, she's only like, what, five or six years older than I am, which is crazy to say. But there's also population growth in the research triangle. This is Raleigh. This is Durham. This is Chapel Hill. This is that area, Cary, apex, whatnot, Wake Forest. And that population growth has been pretty big, especially since students come back to campus. One of the things I do need people to understand is a lot of these college towns have potential for Democrats that I don't think people are appreciating because, like, you know, Biden got like negligible shifts out of Durham, but then 2020, because students weren't there because of COVID then 2022 comes around. Sherry Beasley swings the county five point slip left even as she loses the state, like three or three and a half. So that's something to watch. Chatham county to the south as well, experienced similar things because, like, right next to, right next to Durham, right next to Chapel Hill. So it was a Durham, it was Orange county thing. I don't know. But those college town areas, you know, State College, Pennsylvania is an egregious example of this because there's like five and a half thousand less votes in 2020 than there was in 2016. That could be kind of a treasure trove for local Democrats. And every vote is going to matter in a state like Pennsylvania. So you have that. There's also Charlotte, you know, and that growing metro area, college educated suburbs, and like, even like the north of Mecklenburg, also, like, you know, in eastern Gaston county and, you know, southern Iredale county, even what's Cabarrus county, which I think is going to be a battleground, even like northwestern Union county, those are areas to watch for large leftward shifts. And I think with that, with western North Carolina also becoming potentially a source for huge leftward gains, that's an area you need to watch, especially Asheville. There's the democratic center of it. If you take those three really republican counties out of western North Carolina, you know, do you have a region that narrowly voted for Trump but then voted for Cherry Sherry Beasley in her defeat? Like, there's something to that.
[00:56:51] There's something to that.
[00:56:54] So that's the bull case for Kamala Harris. Of course, you could also listen to Nate Silver. He will give you the bull case for Donald Trump and his model and silver bulletin and whatnot. I think a lot of that is bunk, absolute bunk, and I don't have much respect for. I will get to that in a later episode, however, because we are kind of running short on time. One more thing is money, money, money is so important to a campaign. One of the key reasons why Biden basically had to drop out is because the money was drying up. The big donors weren't given to him anymore. I didn't think he could win.
[00:57:30] It's like, I'm not going to give to your campaign. There were Senate Democrats that had donors come up, say them saying, hey, I'm not giving to your campaign until you tell Biden to drop out. Like, it was bad, like the donors were abandoning ship. Now the donors are back in with Kamala Harris. He was like, oh, he's a canon who could win? Who we think can win. This is the important thing. And the money that has been coming into the Kamala Harris campaign, good God. Good goddess.
[00:58:00] Is like when she got in the race, record amounts for act blue in history. Tim Wallace comes in, there's another bump. Then this debate that happens on, you know, on Tuesday that comes up more, basically record numbers of 1 hour period. There's like what? Twelve and a half million raising a blue in an hour. It's absolutely insane.
[00:58:22] Compare that to Donald Trump. He raised less money in August than he did in July.
[00:58:28] Here's the issue where that comes in. It's not just ground game. It's not just that Kamala Harris is making record investments in digital ads like streaming, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, whatnot, or TikTok.
[00:58:40] The thing is with tv, which is where the vast majority of voters get their news, with voters do lean older than the general population is, there is going to be a point where you have like 600 million or 500 million, however much you have in the bank, it does not hurt you to basically completely blanket the airways. Like this is probably going to get released after the Alabama Wisconsin game. And I'm going to tell you something. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are going to have ats on Fox, on big news Saturday, and Kamala Harris is going to have a lot of them.
[00:59:17] But the thing is, is that you can afford to saturate those markets because at the end of the day, if you keep spending a bunch of money in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, you saturate those markets. Those ads get less and less for what they're worth.
[00:59:35] At some point, you have to think, if we're up in a lot of these areas, competitive in a lot of these areas, and we have huge advantages, most of these states.
[00:59:46] Does it hurt to invest in Texas or Florida states, one of those two states your Senate candidate might need to win, to win the Senate, potentially even after some, especially some brutal polls came out for John Tester recently, I think it was like down eight to Tim Sheehy or something like it. Might not hurt to invest in Texas, might not hurt to pop some money in the Ohio media market because who knows? You have to invest for the election. We're right now you might also need to invest in a blue wave or red wave scenario. You have the money to do it. Why not?
[01:00:21] That ends season four, episode one of Pulse of the Nation. Hopefully things will be a lot more, hopefully things will be a lot more sort of, I don't want to say fleshed out, but hopefully things will be a lot more structured considering we have had to go through four and a half months of material in an hour. I understand that. But next week, we're obviously going to be covering all the updates on the 2024 general election right here. What counties I think you need to watch out for. That's going to be the thing. We're going to start out with some early voting numbers, but the meat of next episode is going to be which counties do you need to watch, especially early on, to help you determine who is going to have the edge and who might win the presidential election many hours before the networks call it. Thank you for listening to Pulse of the nation, where we take the pulse of the nation every week. Well be back here next week. Thank you for listening. Im Brayden Vick, and we have just taken the pulse of the nation.
[01:01:29] Any opinions expressed in this program are those of the host and do not represent the thoughts or opinions of 90.7 WVUA or the University of Alabama. Wvuafm, tuscaloosa.
