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--:-- Election Day is just one month away. Which races will tip the scale? And how accurate is election polling and can Americans trust it? We speak to an expert who gets it right.
--:-- John Bickley: Hello, I'm John Bickley, Daily Wire editor-in-chief. The countdown begins. With four weeks to go before midterm elections, we're turning our focus now to the races and issues that will decide the balance of power in Washington. Whether you've been following the races all year or just tuning in, we've got you covered. Joining me now is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey, Cabot. Good to be here.
--:-- John Bickley: Later, we'll talk to the founder of Trafalgar Polling Group, which has been one of the most accurate polling outlets over the last few cycles on why the polls have been so wrong and how they should be viewed this year. But first, Cabot, can you get us up to speed where things stand now? So we've got a number of important governor's races. Obviously, the Senate is hotly contested right now. It's down the middle, 50-50. Balance of power is there. But we'll start with the House. Republicans are very confident right now that they're going to have success in taking the House. They only need to have five net seats picked up to have the majority. And remember, On average, the party that's not in power at midterms gains 26 seats. That's in a normal cycle. They only need to gain five right now. So Republicans are very optimistic about their chances in the House.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right. But the Senate is a very different situation. The Senate is a different situation. There's a lot of optimism initially. The red tsunami. A red tsunami is really what people were predicting. But then all of that shifted in the summer. We talked on the show quite a bit about how after the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Democrats got a clear bump in the polls. Every single poll in every key state showed that Democrat candidates got a clear enthusiasm bump. Their candidates started to perform better, especially among suburban women voters, which are very important in midterm races.
--:-- John Bickley: So get this. Democrats, they put all their eggs in the abortion basket. They spent $125 million on advertisements focused on abortion. That is 20 times more than they spent on abortion-related advertisements in 2018, the last midterms.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All right, let's get right to it and start with the battleground state that probably is getting the most national attention right now. It's Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, we have Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz facing off against Democrat John Fetterman. Pennsylvania not only has the most nationwide attention, but they're also getting the most money. Almost $90 million has been spent in the race for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat. It kind of gives you an idea of how both parties understand just how important the state is if they want to take the majority in the Senate.
--:-- John Bickley: The race has shifted a lot. So right after the primaries, Fetterman, the Democrat, had a notable advantage. He was up anywhere from 10, 11, even 12 points in some polls. But just in the last month, we've seen that completely reverse. We've seen poll after poll showing Oz creeping within seven points. And then five, we even have polls now showing him within two points. But all of them are within that four to two point range. It's no question right now that Oz has the momentum. What's behind that shift?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The economy right now, Republicans, they just have more trust with voters. There was a Washington Post-ABC poll recently where Republicans had a 17-point advantage when voters were asked which party they trusted more with the economy. We saw another poll from Gallup this week where they had a 10-point lead with voters on that issue. So when Republicans are holding an advantage on that top issue, obviously you're going to see them start to make some improvements. And there also is the issue of Fetterman himself. The Oz campaign has had success in hitting him as being soft on crime and also hitting him as being not suited to lead the state in the Senate. And then there's also the health issues that have come up repeatedly, even from mainstream outlets now starting to focus on this being a real problem.
--:-- John Bickley: During the primary season, right before Election Day for the primary, Fetterman suffered the stroke, as you'll remember. Now, he stayed off the trail for a while. His campaign was sending out alerts saying that he was doing fine, he was making a full recovery, that his doctors had cleared him for all campaigning. But when he came back on the campaign trail it was a different John Fetterman that people were seeing.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: If you say you think the word of steel worker what is wrong with demanding for an easy, safe kind of their income, a path to a safe place for them to win? or excuse me, no right to work. Some of that footage is hard to watch and you can see why he's been reluctant to agree to a debate. He has agreed now to a date of October 25th to debate Oz. Yeah, and one thing worth pointing out, early voting in Pennsylvania would have already started before that. And so the Oz campaign is saying, hey, you're delaying this thing way too long. They're saying if you're really recovered, if you're really confident in your ability right now, why won't you debate us?
--:-- John Bickley: So that's something to keep an eye on. If they stick to that October 25th date. But the fact that voting starts before that is consequential.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All right, let's turn to the Senate race in Nevada, which pits Republican Adam Laxalt against Democrat incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto. Republicans have another close eye on Nevada because it's a state where they can pick up a seat. The Democrat incumbent there, Cortez Masto, has started to falter, which is kind of surprising because Nevada has been reliably blue in the last two presidential elections. But Republicans, they don't just have a chance to pick up a Senate seat. We'll get to the Senate in a second. They have a chance for a clean sweep at all of the elections. Three of the four members of Congress in Nevada are Democrats. All three of them appear vulnerable right now in polling, which Republicans are absolutely thrilled about. There's also the governor's race there, which Republicans came out of nowhere to make a very tight race. And then you've got the Senate race.
--:-- John Bickley: So you could be looking at a situation right now where Republicans take all four House seats, the governor's office, and have success in the Senate race there, which would be huge. So a potential sea change there, what's driving that?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, Republicans have found a lot of success with two main issues, the economy and COVID. Now, obviously, the economy is important everywhere. Inflation is hitting Americans everywhere. And there's also COVID. Now, COVID. This is interesting. So you would think that COVID is not really playing a factor anymore, that everyone's sort of moved on. Even President Biden said that the pandemic is over. But Nevada was hit in a very unique way by COVID lockdowns. Keep in mind, so much of their economy is centered on tourism, on casinos and on events and people visiting the state. That was an industry that was absolutely decimated by lockdowns. And Republicans have had a lot of success in their messaging and saying, look, who locked the state down? Who kept tourists out? Who shut these casinos and these businesses down? That is a message that is resonating in Nevada more than a lot of other states.
--:-- John Bickley: All right, so let's head to the Midwest and look at the Wisconsin race. We have Republican Ron Johnson. He's the incumbent taking on Democrat Mandela Barnes. This is another state where we've seen a complete 180 in the polling. Just as recently as August, Mandela Barnes, the Democrat candidate, was up in virtually every single poll. You couldn't find one where the incumbent, Ron Johnson, the Republican, was leading. He was up by as many as seven points in some polls.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For example, there was a Fox poll in August that had Barnes up four points. That has completely shifted. Now, almost every single poll is showing the race tied or with the Republican, Ron Johnson, with the lead. All right, so again, a notable shift. What's driving it, particularly in Wisconsin?
--:-- John Bickley: There's been an interesting thing that's happened in Wisconsin where the race started out by being focused on Ron Johnson himself and not actually on Barnes. The race has now shifted where Republicans have poured a lot of money, a lot of effort into making people look at Barnes as the main issue for the campaign. And that's really given the Democrats some problems.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Barnes was very open about the fact that he was incredibly progressive. He was kind of touted nationwide as the great hope for the Democrat progressive future. Rising star. Exactly. He was dubbed a rising star by many in the national media. But he's incredibly progressive. In a state like Wisconsin, where 44% of voters say that his views were too extreme for them, they have a huge independent base there in Wisconsin, that presents problems. Republicans have pointed to pictures of him over the last few years wearing a shirt that said abolish ICE. They pointed to tweets where he said the 2016 election was rigged. They pointed to comments he made about Donald Trump being a Russian spy and AOC being his true president. All of those things in a state like Wisconsin, again, with a large independent base, they're starting to really take a hit on him.
--:-- John Bickley: And Republicans are now really pushing this soft on crime message from Barnes. And it's having a huge impact, as you can see in the polling. All right, so another Senate race that's getting a lot of attention and getting very close is the Georgia Senate race between Republican Herschel Walker and Democrat Raphael Warnock who the incumbent Well this is another example where Republicans are viewing this as a pickup opportunity with Warnock being the incumbent It different from Pennsylvania and some other states in the sense that Herschel Walker, the Republican, came out of the primary with overwhelming support. He won the primary really with no real competition. But things have really started to shift. Warnock gained momentum over the summer when all Democrats did after the Roe ruling. But since then, things have been completely back and forth. The polling averages for the two candidates have just been crisscrossing as each candidate takes a lead.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And like all the other races, both of these candidates have some things that are working against them currently, right? They do. Now, one area where this race is different is in some of the other races. A lot of the elements working against them are policy-driven. It's things that they did as politicians in the past. Either of these guys was a politician in their past life. And so the issues have been more personally driven. Raphael Warnock, for example, his ex-wife came out, said that in 2020 during a domestic dispute, he ran over her foot with his car. There are some other elements of his personal life that have started to come up as an issue. Hershel Walker has the same thing. There's been a number of claims brought forward by people, domestic claims, people claiming that he threatened them. One person claiming that he had paid for an abortion for her.
--:-- John Bickley: So those are all things that are very serious stories in Georgia that are getting a lot of attention. Now, it's worth noting, to this point in the polls, it doesn't seem like either of those stories have affected how each party's base is supporting them. Even with Walker, we haven't seen the GOP base shift away from him. To this point, that'll be the interesting thing to keep an eye on. One other thing to keep an eye on in Georgia, you have to get at least 50%. There are a number of third-party candidates that could pull a few points here or there. And if that prevents a candidate from getting to 50%, then these two, the top two, will go to a runoff, which both campaigns are obviously hoping to avoid.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Okay, and the fifth race we're going to look at today is Ohio, where we've got Republican J.D. Vance facing off against Democrat Tim Ryan. What's happening with that race? Well, this is a race that a lot of people weren't expecting to really be talking about at this point. Republicans, they performed very well in 2020. Trump won by almost eight points. They won there handily in 2016 as well. This is one of the few examples where you see Democrats really overperforming expectations. If you look at the polling over the last few months, there is no frontrunner here. Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance, they are locked head-to-head. Again, another race where you've seen crisscrossing at the polls. A new person seemingly up each week. And that is kind of one element where you can see Republicans maybe getting a little nervous.
--:-- John Bickley: Mitch McConnell's super PAC announced that they'd be pouring $28 million over the next month in ad buys on behalf of Vance. Clear sign of concern there. So it's interesting that McConnell's putting money in while the biggest backer for J.D. Vance is actually taking money out, right? Yeah, so Peter Thiel, the Republican tech billionaire and mega donor for a lot of campaigns in the past, he's actually withdrawn his money from Ohio. Now, you might think that's a bad sign, but he's saying internally and at a fundraiser recently, he said, hey, I'm so confident that J.D. Vance is going to win in Ohio. He's on a clear path to victory. I'm going to save my money for other races. So you kind of got a juxtaposition there between House or Senate leadership and McConnell saying, let's get as much money in there. Let's make sure we're safe. And then you got private money with Peter Thiel saying, let's go elsewhere. I'm confident here.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: We'll be talking a lot about those races in the coming weeks. So we've just talked a lot about polling, but many Americans rightfully so are highly skeptical of polls in general, particularly after the last three elections. We saw many pollsters get results dramatically wrong. And almost all of those miscalculations favored Democrats. In other words, pollsters over-counted Democrats and under-counted Republicans at times being 10 points or even more off compared to election results. We've just used and we'll continue to use polling on the show, but we're gonna do so with great caution. We're also gonna look to somebody to help us really dig deeper and break some exclusive polling on this show. And that person is Robert Cahaley, the founder of Trafalgar Group, and he's joining us now.
--:-- Robert Cahaley: It's an honor to be here.
--:-- John Bickley: We wanna address this issue head on, American skepticism about polling. The question here is, why should Americans trust or not trust polls? What's the difference between a poll that gets it right and one that gets it wrong?
--:-- Robert Cahaley: First of all, I would tell everybody, don't make your decision about whether you're going to vote based on what any poll says. If you vote off your mind, you're going to vote for a candidate. You get out there and vote for the candidate. Don't let a poll over to convince you to or not to vote. Second, yeah, you shouldn't trust the polls. Polls have two purposes. They're either to reflect the electorate or they're to affect the electorate. And too many of these media and university-based polls are designed to affect the electorate and are trying to create a false narrative quite often when there not one
--:-- John Bickley: So what an example of a race that other pollsters have gotten wrong over the last few months, but you view as now starting to correct, if you will, as the election approaches? Well, I think that you've got a few good examples of that. Early on, they were saying that Pennsylvania was in double digits. It was never in double digits. Georgia was the same situation. They were talking like Ohio was something could be lost, that Ron Johnson was just toast, and that there was no chance in Arizona to beat Kelly. None of these things turned out to be real, and they weren't real then. They were creating a false narrative. And now as they face the possibility of being very wrong, again, they're adjusting.
--:-- Robert Cahaley: There's been a lot of articles about how the pollsters are worried they're going to get it wrong again. And so now they're having to get back to reality because they don't mind all being wrong, but They hate it when somebody's right. And that's what happened to them in Virginia. That's what happened to them in 2020. And they don't want it to happen again.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, when we talked about the partnership that we've got for the show with you, you mentioned a term that really sort of perked my ears up, submerged voters. Can you explain that for us?
--:-- Robert Cahaley: In 2016, they were shy. They were shy Trump voters. They were for Trump, but they've been called deplorables and smelly Walmart voters. So they were hesitant, especially on live calls, to admit they were voting for Trump. It's called the social desirability bias. By 2020, when cancel culture was in and there was a pervading media environment about what you should and shouldn't say, what you should and shouldn't believe, they were hesitant to give their opinion. So you had to work very hard to get Republicans who were Trump-supporting to participate in the polls, which let a lot of polls overrepresent the very small minority of Republicans who didn't consider themselves as Trump-supporter of MAGA Republicans. 2022 is totally different. Biden has, with his declaration of MAGA supporters kind of being the enemies of the state, with revelations about Facebook and the FBI working together, with the talk that the government's pressuring banks to keep track of credit card transactions for guns. It is not a logical, it's not even the least bit of a logical jump for a voter to suspect that maybe the government will keep track of what people answer in polls to kind of build a list of those MAGA Republicans that are such a threat to the country. So they don't want to compete in polls at all, so we call them submerged.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, Trafalgar's been better than anyone else at finding some of these voters. You've said, though, you don't feel like you're going to be able to find all of them because they are that deeply submerged. What are some of the steps you take, the sort of additional steps, to make sure you're hearing from a representative electorate?
--:-- Robert Cahaley: Well, first of all, we believe in short surveys. The number one problem most polls get wrong is the surveys are too long. They wonder why they have too many college educated people because they ask lots of questions and real people, the real lives don't always have time to answer all those questions. So that's one of the fundamental problems they ask long surveys. They cut out regular people's participation. They also limit the ways that you can participate. You know, it's all calls. It's all online panels. How weird do you have to be to be on an online panel? That's not, I mean, that's insane. Or they do things that it's like they just do in text. And so we give people a lot of ways to participate because everyone's different. And we also do a larger sample size. We're not going to say 400 people represents a whole state, 700. It's always 1,000. We keep our margin there under 3%. And, you know, we dig in a little deeper. We give people a lot more comfort when talking to us and try to get to what's real.
--:-- John Bickley: But even this year, I think we're going to underestimate Republican support because these subverge voters aren't answering polls. They're not putting stickers on the card, no signs in the yard. They're not even posting on social media. They are underwater. They're not saying a word to anybody until Election Day.
--:-- Robert Cahaley: All right, Robert, great talking with you and as always, great stuff. As we noted earlier, we're going to be talking with Robert again next episode where we'll be breaking down the latest polling from Trafalgar and some exclusive results. It's going to be fun to keep track of it all the way down to the end.
--:-- John Bickley: It will. That wraps up our first episode of Election Wire. We're going to be back next week with a lot more like... We're going to be talking to voters on the ground. We're going to be talking to candidates themselves. We've got a whole lot more coming. We're going to keep track of all those polls, and I'm excited for it. All right, thank you.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: This is John Bickley, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief with Cabot Phillips. We'll be back next week with Election Wire. Thank you.
