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 four of Pulse of the Nation. I am your host as always, Graydon Vic. And we are about to take the pulse the nation right now. Before we do that, I do need to talk about a couple of things. No, I'm not talking about the time when I missed that episode last week. I apologize. That means we're kind of at a super episode. But I do need to talk about two major storms that impacted the southeastern United States. First off, Hurricane Helene. Just want to go to an overview.
[00:00:51] A category four hurricane that it's peak with highest winds of 140 miles an hour with the lowest sustained pressure of 938 millibars. It made landfall in the big bend of Florida in September 26, became extra tropical on September 27, and dissipated on the 29th. As of right now, for 214 people are dead, around 285 people are missing, with damages in excess of $38.5 billion. It was the strongest hurricane on record to strike the big Bend region of Florida, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Maria in 2017, the deadliest to strike the mainland United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Of course, the main story coming out of that, the devastating, devastating floods in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, especially western North Carolina, has been the talk for the past week. It seems like, what with.
[00:01:49] So before I go any further on, Helene, please don't get fooled by misinformation. There's a lot of it in regards to, you know, natural disasters about, you know, FEMA responses, especially trying to so, trying to sow discontent, trying to sow unneeded discontent and trying to hamper, you know, disaster, you know, relief responses to fulfill a narrative. So, I mean, please don't get, you know, fooled by disinformation and misinformation, you know, and just make sure that, you know, if you are able to apply for disaster relief that you do so. Because, you know, Helene was terrible, Milton, you know, just came, it just came through.
[00:02:37] And it was even worse in regards to wind speeds. It horrific floods, storm surge as well.
[00:02:49] It may impact mainlandflow in Florida, near Sarasota in particular. It's the second most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico, only behind Hurricane Rita, category five hurricane with highest sustained winds of 180, lowest sustained pressure of 897 millibars. Look at that, 897 millibars. And this was just north of the yucatan peninsula, right now, over 17 people are dead, 14 people at least have been injured, with eleven direct and three indirect injuries impacted areas from the yucatan peninsula and Mexico all the way out to the great Angeles of western Cuba and the Luca and archipelago of the Bahamas, also in the southeast United States and Florida, especially where it made landfall, made landfall near Siesta Key, to be precise, storms, lots of storm surge around the Tampa and Sarasota metro areas in particular. There were a few deadly tornadoes as well, destructive tornadoes on the atlantic coast of Florida as well. There are tornado warnings stretching from Alpenbrook pines to, I think, Vera beach. You know, where those areas are from close, just into Miami metro up, you know, north, northern air north near Port St. Louis state, areas like that.
[00:04:13] So it's just unbelievable damage. You see the damage of Chopacana Field, the home site of the Tampa Bay raids in St. Petersburg, Florida, Pinellas county, where, you know, the roof essentially got blown off, the roof collapsed. And that was supposed to be a staging site for first responders. And if that site's not safe, then that should show you the destructive power of hurricanes. And Hurricane Milton in particular, made a landfall as a category three.
[00:04:40] And, you know, that's two times in two weeks where Florida has seen a direct landfall from a major hurricane. And it just, it's absolutely devastating.
[00:04:56] I mean, please, if you can help out the hurricane victims, the southeast United States in particular, and this is just me personally not speaking for the radio station. This is me personally. Please, if you can help them anyway, please do, because they need all of the support that they can get. Now, I'm supposed to be talking about elections, and I could talk about, you know, how this could heavily impact the voting, which is, you know, we have less than a month to go to elections, I think, you know, 25 days at the time of recording.
[00:05:28] But, you know, it only, it almost becomes second year. Like, I understand, like there will be, you voter turnout decreases that come as a result of this with people not being able to return home and thus not being able to vote their home precincts. And that could be a developing story that comes out of these hurricanes as you enter the home stretch, the final month of the general election cycle. But, I mean, that's almost secondary at this point. Primary concern is just to go ahead and just make, try to make sure that everybody is as safe as possible.
[00:06:06] But now we're going to move on to actual election talk. We are about to take the pulseplanation. Let's go over to the 538 model for more indications. And this model, if you go to this model or silver bulletin or whatever, or split ticket, they'll show you this. A similar thing, like, they're all hurting, and the polls are all of hurting towards a toss up election that tilts towards Vice President Kamala Harris. 538, Hazard winning about 55% of the time, with Trump winning 45% of the time. The two most likely elect total outcomes are Donald Trump winning all the swing states at 312 electoral votes, Donald Trump getting 280 electoral votes, or Kamala Harris winning them all and getting three, meaning about 304, 308 elect total votes. So 306. There's a possibility at 306 electoral votes. So, basically, that is what it is. So there's. There's a bunch of closed polls coming out, and pretty, all the pollsters are hurting, saying that, oh, Harris is up nearly in the popular vote, but all these swing states are, like, within two points. Toss. It's a toss up. If you hear any of the punditry, like, everything is going to tell you, it's a toss up. It's a toss up. Everything is a toss up. And I want to talk about the. I want to talk about the polling itself.
[00:07:26] Here's the thing, right? I get it. You know, a lot of pollsters, like, the worst thing you can be in politics is wrong. Like, if you're trying to predict something, you're trying to talk about elections, you're trying to talk about politics. And, you know, where we come from in particular, it's.
[00:07:48] You do not want to say that something's going to happen, and then the complete opposite things happen. So what a lot of people do is they're going to hedge their bets, and they're just going to throw their hands up in the air and say that it's a toss up. Now, one thing to remember about these polls is that, obviously, this is not an exact science. Like, a lot, even the national, especially the state polls, they have margins of error, about three to five points in either direction. And let me pull up the, you know, national, you know, polling averages and all the swing state polling averages from 538. I do not use real clear politics because they skew their averages in favor of republicans. And they have been known republican hacks for years. 538, at the very least, they are not hacks, and that's the least you can offer. So the 538 national average polls come. The national polling average is commonly hears at 2.4%. And we take a look at these polls, you know, coefficient is harassed by two, active is Trump by two, YouGov is harassed by four with likely voters, Ipsos HaRRIs by two with likely voters moves into their polls. Redfield, Wilton, Harris by two, research company, Harris by four, Morning Consul, Harris by five, so on and so forth. New York Times Sienna had a poll recently, Harris by three. Impute research has Harris by one with registered voters.
[00:09:09] So given that most of these polls, like with the three or four point margin of error, most of these polls, you could make a case that any of these results would fall in line with that polls findings. Whether it's a tide or near Trump popular vote win to a Kamala Harris 2008 style blowout win in terms of the popular vote, all of these outcomes you could justify with the polling, because they would fall within the margin of error. And it does go to show you. And this is, I watched something in CNN from Harry Ensign. Now, I don't hold the highest opinion of him, to be completely honest, but something that he did say recently kind of opened my eyes to sort of the limitations of what you can get with polling is that is exactly these margins of error and that how they become higher for state and for district polls as well, if you see them well, and we'll go over to the state polls where, you know, in Wisconsin, commeliers is up by 0.6%. In Pennsylvania, same deal, 0.6%. Michigan, exact same deal, 0.6%. In Nevada, basically the same deal, 7%. In North Carolina, Trump is up by 0.9%. Georgia, Trump is up again by 0.9%. If you take a look at Arizona, Donald Trump up by 1.4%. If you take a look at some of these other states, even a state like Florida only has shrunk by five in the polling average. Now, I think the polling average is more likely to be right there for a variety of reasons. You take a look at all the actual swing states, they're all saying they're going to be within a point and a half of each other. And considering what the margin of, you know, considering margin of error goes both ways, like what you're saying with all these polls, and I'll take Wisconsin polling in particular, insider advantage has a tie. A couple of republican pollsters there, Fabrizio Lee is trumped by one, Emerson's Trump by one. Research company, Harris by two, Quinnipiac Trump by two, Raphael Wilton, Harris by one. You know, global strategy Group, Harris by two, active vote, Harris by four, New York Times, Sienna Harris by two, or Harris by three, depending on what you look at Marquette university, which is a gold standard, Wisconsin pollster has Harris up by five with likely voters.
[00:11:32] Basically, what you get with this is a limitation. What the polls can tell you, which is that these states are toss ups. And if you're going to do that like we want, like it depends on what you want a poll to say.
[00:11:51] If you want a poll to say, well, this state will be this close and this state will be that close. If you're looking for a poll to tell you, hey, this race is going to be either a toss up, a lean state, a likely state, or a safe state, then these polls would work for such an instance, give you an indication, you know, hey, you know, this state is probably going to be in this category.
[00:12:15] But when you get to these toss up states, these seven states, you know, and, well, seven, I didn't even mention Nevada, or I did mention Nevada. I'm kind of stupid. But when you get these seven states that are so close, you know, and where they're all that are point and point at half of each other, what can a poll tell you about how a toss up state is going to vote, especially when the toss up state is supposed to be really, really close? If you can't get that margin of error down, then can a poll or even a polling average give you any good indication about how that state's going to vote?
[00:12:58] And I find myself questioning that every single day. Because if we're obsessing over these crosstabs, these cross tabs, like 50 people or less or 75 people or whatnot, that are, you know, notoriously could have even wider margins of error. For starters, we're obsessing with this as n ten likes to do, which is why, you know, which is why I don't have that high opinion, have an opinion of them. When you do all this cross tab diving to try and justify what a poll says and then take those crosstabs as gospel, even with the wide margin of errors, that's when you start to lose a little bit of intellectual integrity, in my opinion. But when we're assessing over these crosstabs in a specific state, over a poll that says, oh, it's a toss up, then why are we using the polls to try and tell us how a certain demographic is going to vote when we, when the poll can't even tell us how the state's gonna vote in most cases?
[00:14:01] And that's part of what I don't get about all of us, you know, who ride the polo coaster, because if these polls are selling it, oh, it's a toss up state, then you're not gonna get any good analysis from it. If you're expecting a poll to have like a two point margin of error instead of a four point, instead of a four point march, that's a completely different task, especially because of two things. One, polling has become a lot more expensive, and there are fewer polls out now than what there were in 2020. Not just because people are getting burned, because it's very difficult to try and get it right.
[00:14:39] And the second thing relates to a poll that was released today out of Pennsylvania. And I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but let's go ahead and pull up that poll, if I even can. It was a poll from Tipp insights or tip insights, and it found commonly up by four with registered voters, but Donald Trump only up by one with likely voters. Now, that's highly unusual. I know I'm going a little bit over time with the poll, so let's just make it quick. Apparently what happened is a sponsor this poll, which is a right wing PAC called american greatness. Apparently what had happened is that they just almost completely left Philadelphia, a deeply democratic city, out, almost entirely out of the likely voter pool. They had 127 registered voters in Philly, despite their, like, probably being 93 likely voters in other models. Apparently they went with a completely different type of likely voter model only gave them twelve likely voters in Pennsylvania. That's why they had Trump up by one with likely voters.
[00:15:38] Don't go cross tab diving or whatnot. But if you want to go cross tab diving, if Donald Trump's only up by one with Pennsylvania when Philly's barely even included, that is absolutely catastrophic. That would indicate a four to five point leftward shift in the other parts of Pennsylvania, outside of the city of Philadelphia from 2020 to 2024. In that case, you're looking at a 2018 style wave. And this. And with Tip or Tipp, they doubled down on this because they doubled down. They said it all was just an error. Try to rectify now. They doubled down on it.
[00:16:18] Yeah, sorry. But yeah, they lost a lot of credibility among election twitter. And I will say that flat out. So just be careful with you know what poll as you're siding with what happens, because you don't know what happens in the background. And remember, in 2022, there were a lot of republican push polls that were trying to give Republic. They were trying to gin up republican enthusiasm, giving results that were ultimately not real and didn't end up happening. Arizona governor was one of the most egregious examples of this insider of vanish fall had Kerry Lake up by ten, I think, against Katie Hobbs and Terry Lake lost that election but I think like half a point. So just telling people, be careful. Be, be very careful.
[00:17:06] Let's go over to the United States Senate because I know I haven't talked a lot about it, but the Republicans are, in my opinion, if they end up blowing a control of a legislature in which it is basically should be impossible for them to blow, given the map, then I will be absolutely astonished.
[00:17:35] Here's what the Democrats have to do to hold the Senate. You have to hold on to your seats in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. So let's just go over all the competitive seats. They're like likely safe or whatnot.
[00:17:51] So we'll start with the Republicans of 47 and the Democrats at 42, the Democrats have to hold on to Maryland. I know Larry Hogan is running the republican, popular republican governor there. He's made that race a lot closer than it should be. But ultimately, you know, control the Senate's potential on the line. Angel, all spokes is putting that out. And Senate Democrats are apparently spooked enough to there. She should be all right. That's c 43. Then what do you have to do? You have to protect three rust belt states. You have to protect Wisconsin with Tammy Baldwin, Pennsylvania with Bob Casey as your incumbents, and then an open race in Michigan with Alyssa Slotkin as your nominee should be easy enough. You're leading in the polls there. It should be good. You're at 46.
[00:18:34] Then you have to defend two of your other states. Technically, one will be a from independent because here's the cinema. But Arizona, you're winning in the polls big time. Ruben Gallego is cleaning Kerry Lake's clock at this moment in the polls. And if the polls are to be believed, he's getting a lot of split tickets, people who vote for Trump, but also for Gallego. So whatever he's doing, it must be working, especially if you believe the polls. And if you also believe the polls, you believe that Jackie Rosen is in a very good spot for her reelection as well. I don't go what it is with Sam Brown. Like people are speculating that it's because of his disfigured face, because of his battles, his wounds and war. That are the reason for, because he's got burn scars all over his face and whatnot.
[00:19:19] But that can't be the reason for it. It must be because he's carpetbagging. It must be because Jackie Rosen planted him as extreme or something. I don't know. Jackie Rosen being the incumbent senator for a Nevada. For what it's worth, if that happens, you're at 48 seats.
[00:19:36] There are five other seats, and you have to win at least two of them. You have incumbents in Montana and Ohio.
[00:19:47] And let's just assume that Kamala Harris wins the vice president or wins the presidency. Tim Walls wins the vice president.
[00:19:56] There are five seats. These are all seats that Donald states that Donald Trump carried in 2020 and he is likely to carry in 2024. I say likely. When the pejorative we talk about Texas, I think it's slain Republican at the presidential level.
[00:20:12] Speaking of Texas, Florida, Nebraska, Montana and Ohio. And in Nebraska, the Democrats aren't even running anybody. You're running an independent in the name of Dan Osborne, which that has been an interesting race. Let's get this out the way. Dan Osborne is not winning, and I will put my foot down on that. I do not believe Dan Osborne is going to win that Nebraska center race against Dev Fisher. Yes, Dev Fisher seems to have been caught lacking a little bit. And if you take the 538 bowling averages, she's only up but one, two points, one and a half percent. And some of the last polls, the last three polls of this race, Dan Osborne's up in all of them, and his vote share is only increasing. Survey USA September 20 to 23rd 558 likely voters. Osmo is up by one with 45%. The bullfinch group. Osborne was up by five with 47%. September 21, October 1 400 likely votes. Impact research comes in October 1 3rd. Osborne up by two at 48% of the vote. And here I am thinking, here I am thinking this is just going to be Kansas 2014 again. You had an independent by the name of Greg Orman, he was running.
[00:21:27] And the polls with him and the republican senator at the time, Pat Roberts, they indicated a very close race. And then, you know, Pat Roberts ended up winning by tendin. And I think this is going to be that again. Basically, you're testing the wires with an independent to see how close you can get without a Democrat running. You have an independent that's picking off soft republican voters who like Trump but are, you know, a little bit more bearish on down ballot republicans. Whether someone who, with that Fisher apparently is not really good at running a campaign in this case, then who knows? But I'll tell you, I mean, he's not winning Nebraska. Dan Osborne is not winning the independent. So get that out of the way. That means Republicans are at 48. That leaves you four states.
[00:22:16] You have to win at least two of them. Ohio, Texas, Montana and Florida.
[00:22:21] Let me tell you something about Montana. It is not looking good for John Tesser, the incumbent democratic senator Montana. And it's for a simple reason.
[00:22:31] You know, Montana voted for Trump by 16 points in 2020, and it's likely to vote for him for anywhere from ten to 15 points in 2024. I'd suggest it's probably gonna be closer to eleven to 13 points.
[00:22:46] And John Tester saved from maybe a few polls or something like that. He's not shown that he's able to do that. Like, for God's sake, like, polling is showing that Bob Casey's racing against Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania is closer than what she's been able to do, which is he's able to open up a 5.4 percentage point lead. John Tester hasn't led in a poll since August from RNG research when he was up by 549 percent.
[00:23:17] The rest of these polls have all been comfortable. Sheehy leads. Tim, she. The closest testers been to a lead was when Tim Sheehy went up by 6% with 51% of the vote. September 9. October 1. Public opinion strategy. That's it.
[00:23:34] Clock is probably striking midnight on John Tester.
[00:23:39] If you look at the polls like, and it looks like he's not able to outrun partnership by that much anymore because we are becoming more of a hyper polarized nation. People who identify as Republicans want Republicans to win at all levels of office. The same goes for Democrats.
[00:23:58] And so a lot of these soft partisans aren't going to vote for a member of the opposite party when they hate the other party so much.
[00:24:07] So that puts the Republicans at 49.
[00:24:11] Florida is Fool's goal for Democrats, in my opinion, because, look, if you know Florida, if you know Rick Scott, I know, you know, polls have gotten a lot closer in that race. A lot closer. Saved New York Times, Sienna. But apart from them, you know, it's Scott by two for Marist College, Scott by three, Redfield or Wilton, Scott by three for policy polling, even Scott by one. With a third party candidate being polled there as well, they go back to some early September, pulling Scott by one from victory inside by two for the bullfinch group. Like, look, this is fool's gold. I'll be completely honest. Debbie got a cell pal. She's running a strong race, but she's running in Florida. And considering the fortunes of Florida Democrats in recent years, I would just say I will be stunned if they pull this off in this environment when Florida is largely expected to shift to the right.
[00:25:14] I would be stunned.
[00:25:17] Which leaves, which leaves two states. One, Democrats have an incumbent in Ohio by the name of Sherrod Brown. For some ungodly reason. Despite Ohio being a Trump bias state in 2016 and in 2020, for some ungodly reason, Sherrod Brown still up in the bowl, 2.4%, apart from a couple polls. RNG research, Activo. Activo's not even a real pollster, I'll tell you that much. Basically, apart from RMG research, Sherrod Brown's holding leads in basically all these balls. The most encouraging one I can find is a Brown by two poll from the mayor's college with likely vote with share of Brown at 50%. And oh yeah, I'm pretty sure if I look at the Ohio Senate race, I'm not sure if it's.
[00:26:00] I have to check if there's a third party candidate here because those are pretty crucial. I know there's a third party candidate in Texas. There is not in.
[00:26:09] Well, there is Don Kissick, though, to be fair, for the libertarians and therefore the writing candidates that nobody's going to care about.
[00:26:20] But that's the thing, you know, if Don Kissick, who is your Libertarian Party candidate, it, and he's going to appear on the general bout, that's huge.
[00:26:33] That is huge. Because if Don kissing on the ballot libertarian, you're going to have people who aren't comfortable voting for Bernie Moreno but don't want to vote for a Democrat because that could control the US Senate. So kiss six, your option there.
[00:26:48] Sure. Bronchit. As close to 50% as possible. Bernie Marino continues to nothing be able to close a deal even after massive spending from both sides. Then, you know, I mean, it could be, you know, a surprising win, maybe surprising in terms of partnership win for Sherrod Brown in 2024.
[00:27:08] And if you're able to do that, then that at the very least helps you for 2026 when you have Maine and North Carolina directly on the docket, that's because potential flip opportunities, which leaves you with one other state, and that is Texas. Ted Cruz. Colin Allred the fact of the matter is, I've said this in previous episodes.
[00:27:39] I understand Ted Cruz is up by a bit less than four points, 3.7% points in the 530 pulling average.
[00:27:47] But somebody needs to get it through. Chuck Schumer said Texas is seat 50, not Montana, because I don't get why he's not wanting to invest in Texas or Florida for that matter. Because if Montana is looking like the way it's looking, I'm not sure why you're giving money to Montana. If cheap media markets that have been oversaturated, like you're not even going to get much bang for your buck anymore. So I know Texas and Florida, very expensive media markets, but you got all the money in the world.
[00:28:21] I will tell you, when the poll came out from the morning consult that had Colin hallred up by a 0.45% to 44%, everybody on Twitter lost their minds. So then we settled it. Cruised by three. And the mayor scholars, registered voters, two to five is likely voters. Florida Atlantic has cruised by three. New York Times has cruised by four. Orange and research is cruised by three. Public policy only screws by one.
[00:28:48] But yeah, yeah, basically, Ted Cruz has a small but healthy advantage. If you look at the polls and there was less than 30 days left, but betters late than ever. If Democrats want to seriously contest the United States Senate, then maybe, maybe throw some money Osmo's way secretly because he's an independent candidate. He's refusing to commit to, you know, it being in a coalition with any party, which is a smart play for him. Want to be an independent voice in the Senate, at which there, I mean, I know there are a few independent senators. Baman, you're no longer in the Senate. You don't countenance, go directly to jail. Kirsten Cinema, you barely count. Angus King, I guess counts. But you caucus with the Democrats. And Bernie Sanders, you're Bernie Sanders. But, you know, not caucusing with any party that could put Dan Osborne in a potential mansion style situation, which he would effectively be running the government for the next two years in that case. But that's the US Senate. The Republicans shouldn't fumble the US Senate because of the map at hand, because of the advantages they have in that map. But if they do, we will come back. And Republicans in the US Senate, those candidates are going to get thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly skewered, not just by me, but by everybody.
[00:30:17] So we'll take a, I'm not saying we'll take a break for a couple of minutes, but I, I need a minute to put up some early vote numbers. And the early vote numbers I'm trying to pull from things are being a little stupid, but early vote numbers, they are coming in. People are voting in the 2024 general election. I know we say 25 days until the election or whatnot, but the election is in fact happening.
[00:30:46] Some great numbers from vote hub and some of the crucial swing states here. And here we go. We have some of these numbers. So for today, we have mail vote numbers out of Nevada. It's pretty very early in Nevada, just over 4000 ballots, and most of these are from republican heavy areas. Half of the ballots are from deep republican Elko and Nye counties with some more from Ultramaga, Hershey and Lincoln counties as well. There's only 1100 ballots of these are from, you know, Clark county anyways, so do be careful. But Nevada is starting to get some early votes in starting get some mail votes in.
[00:31:29] Pennsylvania has a lot more in than Nevada, obviously with mail in absentee voting. Pennsylvania has over 344,000 total votes. No Democrats are at 69.4%, Republicans 22.1% and others are third party voters are at 8.5%. Not candidates, these are just voters. These are voter registrations. These are not straight tickets. And for the Nevada Republican voters 41.6%. Other slash independent voters 30.4% democratic voters 28.1% so that is those are the numbers there from Pennsylvania. I'll have more on Pennsylvania soon.
[00:32:14] Michigan's absentee ballots update there are over 2 million absentee ballots set sent with over 467,000 of them returned.
[00:32:24] If we look at the total returns per municipality, top five municipality Detroit over everybody 33,073 Lansing in second place nearly 7000 Grand Rapids over 6800 Canson this is Datsun Wayne County 6262 Warren City of Warren in Macomb County 6171 Macomb Warren probably underperforming state of Florida nearly 364,000 total mail votes the partisan composition of which democratic 42.9% republican 37.2% no party affiliation or others are at 17.9%. Democrats doing very well in southeast Florida, dominating the partisan registration there even well in central Florida. Orlando, Gainesville on the Tampa metro, including Pinellas, Jacksonville, even Sarasota's male votes lean pretty heavily democratic, but the election they vote is like 80% Republican. And the Democrats also doing well in the middle of North Florida. Tallahassee areas near west with high black populations. Republicans are doing well in the panhandle. They're doing well in rural north Florida, rural central Florida as well and areas in the north of the Tampa Metro, Pasco, Hernando, Citrus counties doing well in county they're in well, Collier and Lee county in west southwest Florida and holding water in, you know, east Florida as well with those male votes as well. North Carolina nearly 40,000 male votes with Democrats at 37.8% others at 35.5% Republicans 26.7% and these are just again, these are voter registrations and nothing else there. The state of Wisconsin you have absentee ballot update absentee ballot sent over 515,000 absentee ballots sent, of which nearly 200,000 of them have been returned. Now the number of votes cast. Dane county takes the lead. 23,020. 8350 apologies. Milwaukee county right behind the 28,182. Waukesha county west of Milwaukee. 17,867 with Brown county, which is where Green Bay is in 4th. 10,415 votes. Those are the only four counties with over 10,000 votes cast in the general election there as well. Let's go over to Pennsylvania really quick, because one of the accounts that I'm going to talk about is a guy called Joshua Smithley.
[00:35:05] He's a guy on tour with nearly 25,000 followers, and he does excellent work in, you know, analyzing early votes, basically the John Ralston of Pennsylvania, you know, if you want a somewhat apt comparison. And what he does is he takes into account the fact the mail vote in Pennsylvania is going to be pretty heavily democratic, not as democratic as, say, 2020 was, probably because there's not going to be that many Democrats voting by mail this time around. But, you know, he does analyze what we call firewalls, which is basically the raw partisan advantage that Democrats need to have over Republicans to feel comfortable about their position in the 2024 elections. Of course, independence will be added in as time goes along, but he sees the democratic firewall right now as of Thursday as 162,641 with a return rate edge of 7.5% more than the Republicans. Democrats have returned 24.6% of their ballots, Republicans 17.1% of their ballots, and independents have returned 15.6% of their ballots.
[00:36:22] Tweet says here, I don't think this necessarily means a lot in the end due to potential catch up, but holy smokes, this is probably one of the largest one day drops for Demz and raw net drop and return rate I've seen in the post Covid world nature city out next week. But who knows? And for what it's worth in regards to the firewalls themselves, he said, for Democrats to feel comfortable in the Senate race between Bob Casey and Dave McCormick, he would want them to have about 350,000 mail vote firewall.
[00:36:54] And for the presidency, that would between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. And what is seen, Pennsylvania is obviously seen as the swing state. To end all swing states, the firewall would have to be about 390,000.
[00:37:08] And what we're seeing is that by the time this episode comes out, Democrats could already be halfway to the firewall that they would need.
[00:37:20] And we'll have to see. We'll obviously have to wait till this develops. You can't make any analysis about early votes now it is still way too early, but signs are encouraging for Democrats. Detroit is launched very well. I think they have the best return rate of any, you know, any big city in the state of Michigan, about 33% return rate, which is huge. And I can give you more info on Detroit and percentages there. This is from a guy called Umich voter, 83,000 followers from. He works with vote hub which is where I get all this, all this data from as far as Detroit. Sasson T votes 26 days out. This is from third Thursday. This is 13% of total 2020 turnout, 19% of total 2022 turnout, and as a result of 2020, two's absentee votes, 42% as 42% of the total absentee votes in 2022. And he says that Democrats would want to aim, including in person early voting when that ultimately ends up starting 115,000 to 121 20,000. So Detroit looking pretty good out, you know, just under a month out from the election. As far as Pennsylvania is concerned, a lot of the democratic advantage has to go with Philadelphia. Allegheny Montgomery County. Philadelphia county is city of Philadelphia. Allegheny county is where Pittsburgh is and Montgomery county is northwest of Philadelphia. Up, bunch of Philly suffer. It's pretty college educated.
[00:39:00] And those are your big power sort of counties because I guess just because of rules sending mail ballots out earlier, more mail ballots and whatnot.
[00:39:15] And as far as Philadelphia is concerned, is with nearly 67,000 people that have voted in the city of Philadelphia, which is 9% of total 2020 turnout, 13% of total 2022 turnout, and 52% of total absentee turnout in 2022 on the final count. So remember, there are 749,000 total votes in Philadelphia in 2020. 7000 votes are in now in the city.
[00:39:54] So, I mean, there you go. So some, some of the numbers there, I mean, again, I don't want to make any, no big, you know, proclamations based off of these early votes, but there are some things to like if you're, if you're a Democrat, especially, you know, turnout in these big cities in Brazil, and you would like to see that continue as far as early voting nationwide. From the UF election lab, as of the time of recording, nearly 3.5 million Americans have voted in the 2024 general election, including some other states. Virginia, over 614,000 people have already voted in Virginia. Maryland, over 218.
[00:40:41] New Jersey, over 291,000 people. Minnesota, 220,000 people. Even in California, you have nearly 74,000 people that have already voted in the election. Texas, over 24,000 people have voted in the general election. Illinois, nearly 204,000 people. Indiana has, nearly, has over 47,000 people. Massachusetts, over 108,000 people have already voted. Vermont, nearly 60,000 people in Vermont have already voted in the general election. So I'm telling you, these are coming fast.
[00:41:21] This includes over 546,000 in person early votes and nearly 3 million mail ballots having been returned. So I'm telling you, things are getting pretty hot and heavy in terms of voting, even in Idaho. Over 45,000 people have voted in Idaho. Over 47,000 in Nebraska, over 35,000 in South Dakota. In a state like Kentucky. So nearly 15,000 people have already voted. Like, these, like, elections season is well and truly here. Everybody. It is well and truly here. And, y'all, I cannot wait to dig into actual election results because we go through these polls and we go through these theories and, but, my God, like, I cannot wait to actually dig into some lectures results. I gotta tell you, like, like going through, like a campaign strategy is trying to, you're basically, what you're trying to do is you're trying to play pundit.
[00:42:34] And it is, it really is tiring to try and play punt and to hear other people try to play pundit because we are less than 30 days out from election. We are anxious for news.
[00:42:53] But I've got to tell you some things before we move on to our next topic, which will be me playing pundit in regards to things that the Trump and the Harris campaigns are doing and things that they did on Thursday.
[00:43:10] So I need to tell you, embrace uncertainty because we still don't know what's going to happen. And everything from a republican trifecta to a democratic trifecta is still on the table.
[00:43:29] If you take a look at the polling, if you want to take a broad view of it, which I don't have a broad view of it, if you want to take a broad view of it, base it on polling, then anything can still happen. And I mean, anything can still happen. And that is what mainstream media will tell you. That is what the big newspapers, magazines, they will tell you this because they want to increase their ratings.
[00:43:53] And given the polls, the polls recognize this, and the polls have, I guess, responded accordingly, giving you a bunch of horse race polls for a horse race narrative. And that's going to boost up the ratings.
[00:44:10] But I know you all heard me talk about the Washington primary. Now, for those of you who haven't watched my recent episodes, there's a primary that happened a couple of months ago, especially the congressional level primary is very telling of what the national environment is going to be. And the Washington primary specialist analysis results pointed to an environment very similar to or potentially bluer than 2020, which is especially good news for Democrats in the upper midwest, given the compositions of counties outside the immediate Seattle metro and how they voted. But I think that's either, that's either episode one or episode two of season four, where I talk about that. So I think it's season. I think it's episode one, remembering it now. So go check that out, where I explain that in depth. But the way I look at it, Kamala Harris is favored in this race. When you look at election results, when you take a look at trends and whatnot, that's just where I come off of. If you're looking at the polls and everything, take away the fact anything can still happen.
[00:45:15] Now I want to touch briefly on what Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are doing as far as their campaign strategies are concerned.
[00:45:24] I started out with Kamala Harris, the democratic nominee, the vice president. You know, the media has lambasted her for not doing more interviews or not going out more.
[00:45:35] And part of that, I think, is jealousy, because they want to get interviews. They're trying to fatten their own pockets and get booster ratings and whatnot. They're mad that Kamala Harris is not in her campaign, is not giving them that ratings boost. Big. Part of that show jealousy, part of that cry from an industry that's losing a lot of jobs as well. I think there's some perverse financial, you know, incentive there.
[00:45:58] But it is very, very interesting for a politico and New York Times to cry about that and then see that Kamala Harris goes on the call your Daddy podcast with Alex Cooper.
[00:46:12] Kamala Daddy is. It was formerly a bar Soul podcast, but it went independent a few years ago. It's soul. Any listeners, like, tell you, I've never heard of that podcast before in my life.
[00:46:26] I do this podcast, do this podcast every week, and I barely listen to podcasts. What kind of podcaster am I? But that has, like 11 million, like, monthly listeners or something crazy like that. Most of them are young women.
[00:46:39] Like, it is a podcast tailored to young women. And Kamala Harris went out there, and one of the main things she talked about was women's reproductive rights for versus Wade, you know, overturning it with Dodge Jackson himself, yada, yada, yada.
[00:46:54] And it was interesting for her to go ahead and do that, do that podcast while the New York Times has been screaming for an exclusive interview for months, and they're still nothing. Got it somewhere. AG Sulzberger is close to having his brain explode because he's not been able to get that exclusive interview. But I've already explained my beef with mainstream media. I'm not going to go into it further. But Kamala Harris also did a couple of events today. She did an una vicion town hall in Las Vegas, Nevada, cater to latino voters. A lot of them talked about health care, which I found has been suspiciously out of the limelight in regards to this because people, we talk about abortion, economy, immigration, inflation, corporate greed, or, you know, like democracy, Ukraine or whatnot, but healthcare has not come up a lot, neither debates nor on the campaign trip. And so it was very interesting to hear east town halls from people, you know, they're not just, you know, plants for the Kamala Harris campaign. Those are, some of them generally undecided, some of them being Donald Trump's way.
[00:48:10] And so it's very interesting to get that perspective. Like, hey, you might want to talk about healthcare more. And you know, what people will do in the final months, final month. The campaign is going to be very important. Kamala Harris has been, you know, because people, look, let me tell you something about the party that I identify with, and that's the Democratic Party, is that it is full of a lot of doomers. Like, people just find every reason to say, oh, no, we're doomed, we're so screwed because Donald Trump is doing slightly more rallies than Kamala Harris potentially, or, oh, she's not going out enough. Ah, do something.
[00:48:58] We need people to understand that Hillary Clinton went to Pennsylvania so many times and didn't go to Wisconsin once and still lost both states by basically the same amount.
[00:49:09] In fact, she might have even lost Pennsylvania.
[00:49:13] I don't want to say. But she lost. She lost them within half percent of each other.
[00:49:19] So how much do they matter?
[00:49:23] Especially if you are an evangelist of the Washington primary in a special elections. Both point to environments very similar to the left of 2020. So this wouldn't even matter anyways if you're talking about Pennsylvania.
[00:49:38] So there is that. Speaking of rallye, she did want to Chandler, Arizona, outside the Phoenix metro. It's 100 degrees. Don't know why he would do a rally there. But hey, she did a rally in a swing state, contrary to what the polls are saying. The polls are saying Trump is going to nearly win Arizona. By the way, the polls are wrong in Arizona. And I explained that last episode, which I did a couple of weeks ago, but dudent rally in Arizona. Good. That means you're not completely listening to what the polls say. That's good.
[00:50:08] And they'll continue to go on this rally. I think Tim Wallace did a rally at Erie, Pennsylvania, a few days ago. On Thursday, Barack Obama and Josh Shapiro did a rally for Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And Barack Obama spoke for like 45 minutes. So, I mean, fair enough. This is Barack Obama supposed to be kicking off a month long tour the battlegrounds, speaking in support of Kamala Harris for president.
[00:50:37] And all these surrogates for the Democrats are going out at Harris Walls events. Actress Julia Roberts was out with Stacey Abrams in Cherokee County, Georgia, north of Atlanta.
[00:50:51] So there is that Georgia having events like that. And, you know, its starting to get real. Meanwhile, Donald Trump may be having slightly more events, but I need to, I need to pick a bone with a couple of events. In particular, I need to ask you, why are you doing rallies in the Coachella Valley of California, in Raul vuises congressional district, safe democratic, in a safe democratic state where there are no competitive federal races?
[00:51:27] And why are you, why? Oh, why? I know I'm getting quiet because I don't want to break the microphone. Why are you doing a rally in Madison Square garden?
[00:51:38] Why?
[00:51:40] Like this is that Jerry Nadler represents that.
[00:51:46] Like, I am struggling to comprehend, people. I'm struggling to comprehend.
[00:51:53] Like, I know that there is, in Coachella, there's a congressional district just directly, you know, northwest of it, California's 41st, the toss up district. You know, Republican Representative Ken Calvert is trying desperately to hold on against the democratic nominee, Will Rollins. And Calvert's gonna go speak at that rally, which, by the way, kind of malpractice when that district could very well end up going for Kamala Harris anyways.
[00:52:18] But like, would you, okay, you could maybe justify it by saying, oh, well, Ken Calvert Sissek is right next door. Maybe some media markets might carry it. That would be in the district. I mean, that was the same justification that Donald Trump did when he had a rally around Pensacola or Fort Walton beach sometime in 2017 because, oh, the mobile media market going to have, and he wanted to promote the republican nominee in the US Senate special election, Roy Moore. Roy Moore ultimately ended up losing, for what it's worth, for reasons that were entirely unrelated to Donald Trump's support for him, to be completely honest.
[00:52:55] Okay, you could maybe, maybe slightly justify the Coachella Valley one if you say, oh, you're trying to get show support among Latinos or whatnot. What I don't get in terms of strategy, I'll tell you why hes doing a Madison Square garden rally because Kamala Harris got in his head about his rally sizes, about people leaving Donald Trumps rallies early because he drones on and on and on for hours. Trust me, I can relate there, Donnie. But dude, did she get in your head at the debate so much? Do you keep trying to prove that you have these massive rally crowds? Its one thing to get them there and I think Trump can still get them there, but the issue is keeping them there. Like if you can speak for like a brisk, like 30 minutes, right, but he's speaking on, you're droning on for over an hour, most of these. And it's just like, dude, people have, people gotta go to work in the morning, people have to take care of their kids, go to dinner or whatnot. Like, it's not that they don't like you, they just have other stuff to deal with.
[00:54:05] And also, and like, okay, trying to go to Madison Square Garden, are you trying to hold a rally or whatnot? Like, dude, Madison Square Garden is the absolute least you can turn. You can talk about how you're gonna make a play for New York. You're not, you're gonna lose by 20 there.
[00:54:23] Like, is this just to help a bruised ego? Because that's not what a strategic campaign should be doing. If they're focused on winning and if Donald Trump ends up losing, it'll be this, it'll be outsourcing galvanic operations, the turning Point USA and a bunch of other secondary organizations and a whole host of campaign maladies, including not preparing for rift, was going to drop out for Kamala Harris in July anyways.
[00:54:55] If Donald Trump loses, all say is that there will have been obvious signs the whole way through.
[00:55:04] So where does that leave us as citizens, as people who may end up voting in this general election, which proves to be one of the most pivotal in our lifetimes, if not of all american history?
[00:55:20] The voter registration deadline of the state of Alabama is October 21 on a Monday.
[00:55:26] So if so, for those people who are interested in, you might vote in the state of Alabama. Just go to Alabama, secretary of state's website and you go from there.
[00:55:40] There are other voters registered deadlines. I think Georgia and Texas have had theirs passed up.
[00:55:47] There are some states where the voter registration deadline has already passed. There are some states where you will have same day or automatic voter registration. So you just show that if you're not registered, you show up to a poll in a certain given state. If that state is same day voter registration, they'll register you to vote there or you'll register to vote there, and then you'll cast your ballot now, let you know, because there will be some people in northern states who do utilize this, especially younger folks.
[00:56:15] Alabama does not have same day voter registration and probably will not until a federal law is passed or unless a federal law is passed, you know, making it that way.
[00:56:26] But if for people who want to vote in the election, people who are planning to vote in the election, I mean, it is about that time, you know, November, like November is going to be here. Before you know it, you know, we're going to do a few more of these pulse of the Nation episodes. We take the pulse of the nation and then it's going to be November 5, it's going to be election day.
[00:56:51] And everything that we've talked about, everything you see on the news, everything you see commentary or punishment, good, bad or indifferent, all that gets tossed to the wayside to be judged later because the people are going to decide.
[00:57:12] The people are going to decide not just who wins the presidency, but also wins the Senate, but also who wins the US House, which I will talk about next episode. The US House in particular. You want to know the 538 average?
[00:57:27] 538 average. Has the House races essentially tied? It really, you know, it really, you know, with all, everything that's happened in 2024, I know it is exhausting because season four, episode one, I talked about the fact that, you know, the incumbent president dropped out of the race and the guy who was running against him, the republican nominee, who was a former president himself, got shot once in the year and had another attempt against his life that was way, way more pathetic and didn't even come close to even getting an angle.
[00:58:08] But Donald Trump got shot. You know, commeliers has come in, you know, post primary because Joe Biden dropped out. And if Kamala Harris wins, she'll be the first woman to ever be president of the United States. The first ever president, I think, of asian indian descent, second ever black president of the United States.
[00:58:33] This election promises to be historic in so, so many ways.
[00:58:41] And I recognize, look, the time I'm recording early morning, Friday, October 11. I've only got a few of these left. After this one, I've got three more episodes, assuming I manage to get up to do them all. And then it'll be election day. Now I got October 18, 25th, November 1, which, by the way, November 1 is the first day of American Indian Heritage Month. And then November 8 and the 15th, to be fair, they will be post mortems of this election. We don't have that long left to go, but we will take the polls of the nation along the right. Thank you for listening to the pulse of the nation. We will be back here next week with more early voting numbers, with more polling numbers, with more political news, not just from the presidency, but from the US Senate, the US House, and again, remember, Alabama's second congressional district is competitive this year. Join us next week as we take the bolts of the nation.
[00:59:48] 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.
