The Great America Show - November 15, 2022


A NEW ELECTION ERA： BOTH SIDES SO PARTISAN, TRIBAL AND ANGRY THAT NORMAL METRICS & RULES DIDN’T APPLY IN THE 2022 MIDTERM ELECTIONS


Episode Stats

Length

34 minutes

Words per Minute

167.00063

Word Count

5,723

Sentence Count

298

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary

A week after the midterms, we don't know exactly where we are politically. What happened? And why did the Democratic Party lose? Lou Dobbs and Tom Bevan try to answer that question and more on this week's Great America Show.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello everybody, I'm Lou Dobbs and welcome to The Great America Show and here we are.
00:00:05.920 The world's only superpower, the greatest nation on earth, the most sophisticated,
00:00:12.180 technologically advanced society and economy, the only constitutional republic,
00:00:19.120 the greatest democracy, and here we are. But where are we exactly? Well, for all we're
00:00:26.900 supposed to be as a great nation, we don't rightly know. A week later, how that election turned out.
00:00:34.600 So we don't know exactly where we are. And that seems to be exactly the way the Marxist
00:00:41.400 dems want it to be. All right, we don't need to know exactly, but how about just approximately then?
00:00:48.240 I'll take our approximate whereabouts politically, because we are in a sea right now of ambiguity,
00:00:54.900 a dense fog of disinformation, and none of us seems to see any horizon, in any direction,
00:01:02.800 distant or near. And we could well be standing over shifting sands of time, of relativism,
00:01:09.620 and absence of both understanding and resolve. A vast, even endless void of values, perception
00:01:16.960 confused, knowledge lessening and all melding in a slow dimming of the lights of civilization.
00:01:23.300 A creeping darkness of indifference and ebbing national vitality. And the existential questions
00:01:30.600 seem to get larger and more complex. Is this really how our great nation ends? In confusion,
00:01:38.700 passivity, and surrender of our ideals, hopes, and dreams as Americans? The Marxist dems, the deep
00:01:46.200 state, the other enemies of freedom and individual liberty, enemies of the United States and of truth
00:01:52.020 and justice and the American way, want us to answer as weak and lost souls would. They want us to answer
00:02:00.140 yes, to surrender to the forces of darkness. Yes, to ending the fight for the American dream,
00:02:06.420 for our constitutional republic. As if 250 years of American history and conflict and sacrifice suddenly
00:02:15.260 matters not in the early 2000s. As if we have no responsibility, no obligation to preserve the United States
00:02:23.820 for our fellow citizens, for future generations of Americans. But to the Marxist left, listen to this.
00:02:32.380 We will prevail. No matter the Marxist left's catcalls and gnashing of teeth, nor their evil ways and deeds,
00:02:39.640 we must fight them to win. There is no path to a future of freedom and prosperity paved with yielding
00:02:47.280 compromise of all we are as a nation, surrender of all that was our legacy, the surrender of future
00:02:54.640 generations of Americans' birthright. Our duty is much higher. Our burdens, ours to carry and not
00:03:02.040 complain or succumb to fear, to weakness. Our duty is to overcome the Marxist left, to prevail.
00:03:09.480 To assure the survival of truth, of justice, and the American way. There is no other way.
00:03:18.780 Now about that midterm election that is still unfinished. We have with us today Tom Bevan.
00:03:24.780 He is the co-founder and executive editor of the important political media site Real Clear Politics,
00:03:31.820 an aggregator of polls, opinion, and analysis. Tom, always good to have you with us here on the
00:03:37.940 Great America Show. Welcome. And about that midterm election, what in the world happened on November 8th?
00:03:46.080 Well, that's a good question. I think, you know, typically in these elections, and I've been through
00:03:51.520 a few of them, there's a fog of war aspect to how the vote shakes out. And you need a couple days to
00:03:59.420 kind of dig through. And first of all, see, we've got a lot of races outstanding.
00:04:02.920 So we'll see where those come in and then kind of dig through and figure out exactly what happened.
00:04:10.360 I mean, this one to me is, was surprising. I mean, by all the metrics that we use to look at
00:04:19.120 midterm elections, historically speaking, whether it's the president's job approval rating, the right
00:04:24.980 direction, wrong track metric. You know, you look at voters were telling pollsters very clearly that
00:04:33.340 it was economy and inflation was the number one issue and that Republicans had advantages on those
00:04:37.660 issues. There was, this was a, almost a perfect storm, very difficult environment for Democrats to
00:04:48.640 run in. And yet they ran surprisingly strong all the way across the country, outside of Florida. I mean,
00:04:53.140 they won a lot of house races that were, that were toss ups, that were really competitive races that,
00:05:00.020 you know, you would think in an environment like this, that, that, that would advantage Republicans.
00:05:04.260 It, it didn't in a lot of these places. And so, you know, it's one of those things. I think the
00:05:10.160 biggest number that jumped out to me, Lou, looking just sort of at the exit polls,
00:05:14.600 independence voted for Democrats by two points, independence. And, and that's not,
00:05:20.980 that is a historical anomaly, uh, for a first year midterm with, again, those kinds of metrics
00:05:27.760 involved. I mean, usually independents vote with the, you know, whoever wants change, not for a status
00:05:34.020 quo in a, in a first year midterm. So, and I'm not exactly sure why that is. Uh, I think it'll take
00:05:40.040 some more digging. I don't necessarily buy the, the idea that it was, um, that it was abortion because
00:05:47.300 again, the data was pretty clear on this abortion motivated Democrats, uh, January 6th, you know,
00:05:53.580 threats to democracy motivated Democrats. It did not, it was well down on the list of, of urgent
00:05:59.880 concerns for certainly for Republicans, but even for independence by, by three to one or four to one
00:06:05.360 in some cases. So that wasn't it. Uh, but clearly despite the economy being their number one issue,
00:06:13.180 independence did not hold that against Joe Biden and the Democrats and a lot of these races, they just
00:06:17.660 didn't. And to me, that is among the chief inexplicables because he ran up a, uh, half a
00:06:29.100 trillion dollar tab just for the student loan forgiveness. Uh, we used to call that walking
00:06:34.520 around money. Do you remember that? Uh, only he's doing it in increments of millions of dollars,
00:06:41.360 uh, for the, for the, for the young voters. And apparently they turned out. So as bald, uh,
00:06:48.120 a bribe as it was, it apparently had some considerable positive effect for the Dems.
00:06:53.880 Yeah. I mean, that was a question, young voters, uh, whether they would turn out typically again,
00:06:59.640 they don't historically speaking in a midterm. And again, I think this means that, you know,
00:07:04.600 uh, we're in a new environment. I mean, maybe we've reached the end of history with regard to
00:07:10.620 how we analyze elections. We've entered an era where, you know, both sides are so partisan,
00:07:16.840 so tribal, so, uh, concerned about the, the quote unquote existential threat posed by the other side
00:07:24.800 that, uh, that the normal metrics and rules no longer apply. Um, that's quite possible,
00:07:31.920 or this could be just a, again, a historical anomaly. And we go back to sort of our, our regular,
00:07:37.820 uh, more regular patterns in, in future cycles. But, um, again, it's, it's, it's one of those things
00:07:45.220 we'll, I think we'll get a better understanding of it, uh, as time goes on. Yeah. When the anomalies,
00:07:52.940 uh, become the norm, I believe we have a, a new environment. And I, I personally believe that
00:07:59.680 there is a different field to it. I can't claim anything more than an intuitive response to all
00:08:04.900 of it has happened since 2012. Uh, that was an election that, uh, certainly Mitt Romney should
00:08:10.500 have won without question. Uh, this has very, I realize one is a presidential and the other is a
00:08:16.540 midterm, but it has a very similar field, a lot of unexpected results, a lot of, uh, disconnects,
00:08:23.580 uh, and anomalies. And, and for example, sitting now in Arizona, uh, something like 70% of the vote,
00:08:31.940 uh, uh, uh, counted, but my Lord, what is taking so long and why would there be machine failures? And
00:08:38.820 they ran a perfect election in the primaries and suddenly a fourth or fifth of the machines are,
00:08:45.060 go down, uh, in Arizona, uh, these all sorts of questions arise, uh, and, and again, without
00:08:54.640 explanation. Yeah. I mean, one of the more interesting aspects of this to me, so Joe Biden's
00:09:02.120 job approval rating in our, in our real clear politics average, it was about 42.3, uh, exit
00:09:08.320 polls from last night show it at 44 nationally. And if you go look at these individual States, it was
00:09:12.820 43 in Arizona, 41 in Georgia, 46 in Pennsylvania, 42 in Ohio, 45 in Nevada, 42 in New Hampshire,
00:09:20.140 43 in North Carolina, 45 in Wisconsin. So he was at or below his, his national job approval in five of
00:09:26.480 those swing States. Um, you know, Obama was at, uh, Trump was at 45 in 2018, lost 40 seats. Obama was at
00:09:34.920 45 in 2010, lost 63 seats. Obama was at 44 in 2014 and lost 13 seats. So, um,
00:09:42.820 one of the interesting things that when you look at this data is that the people who,
00:09:47.980 who were somewhat disapproval disapprove of Joe Biden, right? There's, they asked people to do
00:09:53.480 strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove or strongly disapprove. Um, the folks
00:10:00.040 who approved to Joe Biden, obviously voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. The people who
00:10:03.220 strongly disapproved of Joe Biden voted overwhelmingly for Republicans, but among the slice of people that
00:10:09.680 only somewhat disapproved of Biden more often than not, they voted for Democrats,
00:10:14.300 they disapproved slightly sort of mushy on, on Biden's handling, but they still continued to vote
00:10:22.500 for Democrats. And again, that's something that to me, I want to go back and take a look at that
00:10:26.800 historically. That seems like a, another indicator that, uh, you know, that the electorate did not
00:10:33.580 function in, in the normal pattern that we are used to seeing in these midterm elections.
00:10:39.660 Uh, either that, or the pollsters were not operating, uh, in an, uh, appropriately given
00:10:47.800 change, uh, atmospherics in our society, the, among voters, we are, you know, perilously close to
00:10:56.580 not having a Republican majority in the house. Although that does seem to be the, uh, the outcome once it's
00:11:02.380 all said and done, uh, and governors picked up, uh, two and Republicans lost two in the governor's
00:11:09.260 races. So it's, we are a divided nation as, as, uh, as cliched that is, uh, to say, uh, but it's more
00:11:19.540 than just hackneyed analysis. It, we are in a midterm that should have historically, as we've all said,
00:11:27.740 should have seen the Democrats punished for what was the wrong direction, uh, in the country for
00:11:33.660 the, uh, the disruption of, uh, of a prosperous economy. The list goes on and there was, there
00:11:41.380 was no punishment whatsoever that I can say. Well, I mean, they will not most likely not have
00:11:47.800 a majority in the house. Um, but obviously they, they, they did surprisingly well in holding down
00:11:53.920 their losses from what a lot of folks, uh, myself included, we're going to be significantly more
00:11:59.500 gains from Republicans. Um, as, as to the polling, listen, you know, we're going to go through once
00:12:05.620 these results are final and we're going to, and we're going to take a real hard look at the pollsters
00:12:10.240 and how they did and who was accurate and who was not accurate. And that's part of our pollster
00:12:14.140 accountability initiative that we've launched at real club politics. And, you know, there were some,
00:12:18.560 I mean, just broadly speaking, you know, the polls were generally accurate. Our averages were,
00:12:24.140 you know, pretty accurate in Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin. Um, you know, we had Maggie Hassan's
00:12:31.440 support was understated in, in New Hampshire, but it was also Marco Rubio's support was understated in,
00:12:37.000 in Florida. Um, you know, the Georgia runoff, the polls show that a tie basically going to,
00:12:43.760 um, or they had Herschel Walker, the latest polls had Herschel Walker up about a point,
00:12:46.880 but going to a runoff, which is where it ended up. Uh, the last polls had Oz winning and by,
00:12:52.120 you know, three tenths of a percent on our average in, in Pennsylvania, and he lost by two and a
00:12:56.640 half. So it, you know, some of the, the bluer the States got the bigger, the, you know, some polls
00:13:02.180 showed that Colorado was going to be close. It wasn't some polls showed that, uh, you know,
00:13:06.320 Washington state was going to be close. It wasn't. So in some of those blue States,
00:13:10.960 bluer States, Democrats really did flex their muscles and, and over perform the polls. But again,
00:13:16.700 we'll be able to take a, it'll take us a week or two weeks to kind of really dig in and see exactly,
00:13:21.400 uh, what went on with the polling. But at first blush, um, it wasn't like it was a complete,
00:13:28.040 you know, polling miss all across the country. No, no. Uh, and I, I don't mean to, to suggest that I,
00:13:35.660 what I, I'm, I considering is that there were polls, particularly in the Northeast, uh, that just
00:13:43.320 were, uh, had a wrong conclusion, but the margin of error is appropriate. Uh, and the idea of the
00:13:51.940 red wave became something of a, uh, uh, a myth that was being built, uh, every day, uh, larger and
00:13:59.780 taller. Uh, I think it got, it was a, perhaps a, a contrivance of the, of the national political
00:14:06.660 media more than anything else. What do you think? Um, I don't know about that. I mean,
00:14:13.020 obviously I think, I think, um, you know, from our perspective, again, we went through this very
00:14:19.760 methodically and looked at the polls and looked at the numbers and the metrics and, you know,
00:14:23.680 Sean Trendy is our senior elections analyst and he's, you know, we talk about the fundamentals
00:14:28.400 all the time. The fundamentals are what drive this election, right? Again, presidential job approval
00:14:33.660 rating, um, you know, the economy as being sort of the, the number one driver, which was clear in
00:14:41.020 the data. That's exactly what the case was. Um, and in this kind of environment, Democrats,
00:14:46.220 you know, should have, if they, if it followed historical patterns, um, they should have taken
00:14:52.500 much more of a losses in, in the house side and Senate side. Um, you know, the generic congressional
00:14:59.320 average, again, you know, our final average added Republicans plus 2.5, uh, right now. I mean,
00:15:04.940 if you look at these numbers that are coming in and again, there are a lot of votes to be counted
00:15:07.840 on the West close West coast. So this is going to, this is going to shrink over time, but
00:15:12.160 Republicans lead by five and a half million votes. It's 52 46 right now. Um, so that'll obviously
00:15:20.000 shrink, but I didn't realize that it expanded that much. Yeah. So Republicans will still end up
00:15:25.760 winning. I think the, the, the national house vote, um, which is again, the corollary to the,
00:15:32.020 the generic congressional ballot. Um, but, and, and again, typically, you know, a two and a half
00:15:38.860 percentage points lead in the generic ballot would have yielded, uh, more gains for Republicans in,
00:15:46.700 in this kind of environment. Yeah. It gets to be a little bit like, uh, president Trump, uh,
00:15:53.360 talking about, wait a minute. I, I won Florida. I won Ohio. I won all of these counties that are
00:15:59.040 absolutely, uh, uh, essential, uh, historically to winning the presidency. Why did I have the
00:16:04.660 presidency? Uh, those become, uh, sort of coincidental factors rather than, uh, determinate
00:16:12.500 agents. Uh, it's a, it gets a little, uh, tricky, uh, what, what you all do. I, I mean,
00:16:19.060 I respect the heck out of the, all of the pollsters, uh, nearly all of the pollsters. There's
00:16:23.060 some, uh, some that I don't, uh, but, uh, he overall, I think a good job is done, but it's
00:16:31.660 also interesting to me that there was an expression that I heard less in this election than I have
00:16:37.200 heard since, uh, well, uh, 1992. And that is, it's the economy's stupid. I didn't hear, uh,
00:16:46.000 that expressed. And I didn't see any evidence that it was preying, uh, actively on the minds of
00:16:53.980 voters of either party. Did I miss something? Yeah, I think you might've, I mean, look again,
00:17:01.440 from, from the data, from the polls, the economy was the number one issue. I mean, it wasn't even,
00:17:05.460 it wasn't even close. I mean, this is the thing it was. And I, I tweeted about this and I talk about
00:17:11.400 this. I mean, if you go back and look, um, in April, Quinnipiac had, uh, listed inflation. It
00:17:18.000 was the number one issue across the board for all voters, for Republicans, for Democrats and for
00:17:22.440 independents. In May, this was after the Dobbs decision dropped, it leaked in early May, May 2nd,
00:17:29.560 I think. Uh, so a few weeks after that, you can see inflation, the number one issue among Republicans,
00:17:34.480 among independents overall, but Democrats' priorities shifted immediately, understandably,
00:17:39.180 to, to abortion. It became their number one issue. Fast forward to August, late August. So now that
00:17:45.060 the Dobbs decision actually came out on, uh, in June. So here we are, you know, full two months after
00:17:50.960 that, uh, inflation was the number one issue by three to one for all voters, for Republican voters
00:17:59.360 and for independent voters, but still not for Democrats. It was like tied for fourth or something
00:18:04.480 behind, uh, abortion and some other issues. Um, so it clearly was a major factor in this election.
00:18:14.780 Uh, voters were telling pollsters that unequivocally like for months. Um, but, and again,
00:18:22.300 even though Republicans had big leads on that issue, think back to the NBC news, wall street journal,
00:18:26.760 I think it was something like 25 or 30 points on the economy that, that voters trusted Republicans
00:18:31.300 over Democrats. Um, it did not translate in, at the ballot box for whatever reason. Um, Democrats
00:18:38.760 were not held accountable, uh, you know, for, for what people said, you know, they, they think the
00:18:45.900 economy's on the wrong track. They were suffering, they were struggling to pay their bills and the
00:18:49.600 like. Um, but again, for whatever reason, they decided that, that, uh, they would vote for Democrats.
00:18:56.500 Well, uh, you know, I, I, I, I take your point and I, and I feel like definitely I did miss something,
00:19:02.980 uh, even though, uh, to me it was perfunctory the way the Republicans included, uh, high inflation
00:19:10.040 and the economy on their litany of grievances against the leadership of Joe Biden. Uh, and I think
00:19:18.800 it shows that whatever the problems we had with Joe Biden, if indeed there were significant, uh,
00:19:23.960 they didn't translate to district races and state races, uh, whether it be the Senator or the,
00:19:30.780 or the house, uh, I just didn't see that happen. Uh, I will, I will say this Lou. I mean, you might,
00:19:37.140 I think you're right in the sense that, you know, Republicans really did sort of hone in and,
00:19:43.200 and think that they were getting traction on the issue of crime. The crime was going to be,
00:19:48.440 you know, so they stopped talking about the economy so much and they really started hammering the issue
00:19:51.640 of a crime. And, you know, they thought that this was creating a surge for Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.
00:19:57.340 It was creating a surge for Lee Zeldin in New York. Um, you know, and look, Lee Zeldin finished
00:20:03.640 better than, I mean, I think that race is like five or six points. Um, so it obviously boosted him,
00:20:09.420 but it may have distracted, uh, Republicans from, from talking about in the same way that Democrats
00:20:15.000 shifted their entire focus to abortion, uh, and didn't really talk about the economy.
00:20:19.480 It may have led Republicans, uh, you know, to get distracted talking about an issue that they
00:20:24.840 thought was going to really help them when in the end, uh, voters, you know, wanted to hear more.
00:20:29.900 They could have done a better job messaging and driving home the message on the economy.
00:20:34.940 And of course, playing in all of this is, uh, 2024, the Republican Lieutenant Governor of Georgia
00:20:43.960 decided to, to get a, to get a jump and said, Donald is in the rear view mirror. It's time to move on
00:20:52.820 based on all that was transpiring. How does this play for 2024?
00:20:59.240 I mean, listen, it's it prior to this election, it seemed very clear to me that Donald Trump,
00:21:06.180 a was going to run. He keeps telling people and he set a date when he's going to announce. And,
00:21:09.980 and it seemed very, very clear and that Donald Trump would, um, you know, the data suggests that
00:21:16.520 he's, if he decides to run, he's going to win the nomination. I mean, Republicans still like him and,
00:21:22.640 and, uh, prefer him over many other candidates, including Ron, uh, Ron DeSantis. However, um, I,
00:21:31.320 I, you know, I think that might change the calculus a little bit. I don't think it's going to deter
00:21:36.040 Donald Trump from running, but it may, Ron DeSantis may be encouraged to try and, you know,
00:21:41.860 take on Donald Trump in a primary where, where I didn't think he was going to do that, uh, prior to
00:21:46.860 last night, but given how well he did, he's going to have a lot of people chirping in his ear saying,
00:21:53.080 listen, you're, you're the savior of the Republican party. You're the only guy who can do this.
00:21:56.860 Here's all the money here are all, you know, we're lined up behind you, et cetera, et cetera.
00:22:00.940 You got to do this. You got to do this to save the Republican party. Um, and he might be tempted by
00:22:05.520 that. He might be, you know, again, given, given how well things went for him in Florida last night,
00:22:11.980 um, we may have a different dynamic on our hands that we, that we would have had otherwise.
00:22:17.120 I mean, it was not a great night for Trump. Uh, you know, I mean, some of his candidates won,
00:22:23.040 some of them lost, but just generally speaking, I mean, he was, he was out rallying. He was,
00:22:28.100 he was playing in a lot of these primaries. Um, and it wasn't a great night for, for Republicans.
00:22:34.360 I mean, there's just no getting around that. So I think he's going to, again, I'm not sure that
00:22:39.020 changes his calculus, but it may change the calculus of, of some folks in the party who,
00:22:43.500 um, who would like to see Donald Trump's policies and his platforms without all of the baggage and
00:22:52.160 drama that, that he brings along, because it is clear that, that, you know, Donald Trump,
00:22:57.420 he motivates Republicans, but, but he also motivates the heck out of Democrats.
00:23:02.500 And Democrats, Lord knows, don't need a lot of motivation. I mean, they,
00:23:06.980 they, they outwork Republicans every election. I don't care whether it's a midterm, a presidential,
00:23:13.080 their ground game makes Republicans look like children, uh, playing at politics. Uh, we,
00:23:20.780 we, we've just seen too many times, whether it's Pennsylvania, you name this, almost name the
00:23:25.880 state, their ground game is superior to anything that the Republican national committee plays any
00:23:31.780 role in certainly. And most of the state, uh, parties are not particularly good at it. Uh,
00:23:38.080 we were told by the Republican national committee, boy, do we have a database? Oh,
00:23:42.180 you've got a database. Uh, what, what good was it? Uh, it's, it gets to the point that there's an old
00:23:50.300 saying, uh, it's mine. Uh, you know, when you cross the penumbra of the absurd, there's nothing to do
00:23:56.620 but laugh. Uh, we have to laugh at what, uh, at these excuses for a national committee, uh, that we've
00:24:04.040 seen since 2012. Uh, they are absolutely helpless and without the intervention of Donald Trump,
00:24:12.180 in 2016, uh, this would be really a woeful record indeed. Don't you think?
00:24:19.080 Well, look, I think Donald Trump did, I mean, he changed the Republican party. I mean, he, he,
00:24:24.280 he changed it fundamentally into a working class populist economic based party. And, and that change
00:24:32.580 is going to continue, um, whether he's at the top of it or not. I mean, because the, the plates have
00:24:40.380 shifted and I don't think there's, there's any shifting back that's going to happen anytime soon.
00:24:45.620 So, um, you know, I, I, I suppose Republican operatives would say to you, their response
00:24:52.600 would be, listen, you know, we just turned out 48 million votes across the country and we beat the
00:24:59.160 Democrats by, again, we'll see what the final number is. 2 million, a million and a half. Um,
00:25:04.480 they'll say they did their part. Maybe we'll see in the end that, that Republican turnout came up
00:25:10.680 short in, in some of these States. And that's really what, what had happened. I mean, Myra
00:25:15.380 Flores tweeted that last night. She lost her race in South Texas, um, to, uh, uh, what's his name?
00:25:23.160 I'm blanking on it, man. I've got two hours sleep. So I understand. Same here. My, Myra Flores lost her
00:25:29.280 race. And she said, you know, basically Republicans and independents didn't turn out and, you know,
00:25:34.760 stayed home and, you know, you get what you vote for. So good luck. Cause you got a Democrat now.
00:25:39.960 Um, again, it'll take some time to really sort of tease out exactly if that was the case. And,
00:25:45.780 and it was a, it was a Republican turnout problem as opposed to, uh, you know, uh, uh, an issue just
00:25:52.300 with independence that Republicans turned out and Democrats turned out and they were all fired up.
00:25:57.440 Both sides were fired up and independence just, just tipped the balance in, in a lot of these
00:26:01.940 races, uh, enough to, to give Democrats, uh, the, the votes they needed to win a lot of these close
00:26:08.820 races. Yeah. The, the winner was Vincent Gonzalez. Thank you. Uh, and, and, and one of the, you're
00:26:16.860 welcome. Uh, and, uh, and we, we see nothing but blue. Well, that's not true. There's one district
00:26:24.360 and I can't recall which it is along this, the Southern, uh, tip of Texas there with the border
00:26:29.940 with Mexico. It's blue, uh, uh, nearly all of it. Uh, so there's, uh, again, a misreading,
00:26:37.660 I think on the part of the Republican party when it comes to illegal immigration, uh, when it comes
00:26:43.060 to border security, uh, you know, that's a hard sell on that particular, uh, sector. If I can use the
00:26:50.540 border patrol, uh, term it, it, and I think, uh, frankly, Flores is, uh, misinterpreting as well.
00:26:59.160 Uh, there's a preference there and it's a preference for what is a, uh, a free flow of,
00:27:05.360 uh, illegals, a free flow of drugs and a tolerance, if not a preference, uh, for, uh, human smuggling,
00:27:13.940 sex trafficking. And it's that's that simple. The United States, if it does not have the courage
00:27:19.500 to secure a border and to stop all that is crossing that border illegally, uh, that we have huge
00:27:25.580 problems. Uh, it may, there may be a truce at the border on either side of it because the, frankly,
00:27:31.200 the cartels are now controlling both sides of that border. Uh, it is, it is desperately bad news for
00:27:37.760 the rest of America. Well, listen, uh, you know, this was one of the things we were talking about,
00:27:43.960 the Hispanic vote, which has moved to Republicans over the last couple of cycles, right? It looks as if
00:27:48.860 Republicans did, did well with Hispanics. I think it was 60, 40 in the exit polls. I mean,
00:27:53.500 that's nationally. So we'll see where, again, in some of these States, how, how those numbers
00:27:57.900 differ, um, but also seem to do, uh, well with African Americans, uh, better than they have in
00:28:04.760 the past. So, you know, I, I also saw, and I want to go back and again, look through this. Um,
00:28:11.920 you know, when you look through, I think the gender gap was not nearly what it has been in past as
00:28:16.700 well. And again, that might have something to do with Donald Trump, not being on the ticket himself.
00:28:21.500 Uh, but Republicans seem to recover ground there as well, but again, came up short in just a lot of
00:28:27.880 these close races. And, um, so I, we'll see what the, what the, uh, Republican party decides to do
00:28:36.180 moving forward and how it may adjust and, and it's, it's, it's messaging and it's, it's stance and what
00:28:43.400 lessons it's going to learn from, from what happened. You know, there are an awful lot of
00:28:47.520 people in the Republican party who were expecting a lot more, uh, a lot more, a red wave, a red
00:28:53.160 tsunami. Uh, and it just didn't occur. Uh, as you say, it's absolutely maddening that in this day and
00:29:01.180 age, we can't count in one day or frankly vote in one day, uh, for our, uh, our, uh, elected officials.
00:29:08.780 It is really stunning stuff. Uh, your thoughts on what changes have to be made in terms of the,
00:29:15.080 uh, of the operation and administration of, uh, the electoral, uh, system.
00:29:23.060 Um, well, I, listen, I do think, uh, it's, it is astounding. My parents live in East Mesa,
00:29:30.260 Arizona, and they be texting and said they went to two polling locations and the lines were so long
00:29:34.780 because the tabulating machines were broken. Um, and it is astonishing that in a, a, uh, after,
00:29:42.460 especially what, after what happened in 2020, you know, the, the, the state and the apparatus there
00:29:48.320 had two years to get their stuff together and to have 20 to 25% of those tabulating machines break
00:29:54.760 down on election day. Um, when, you know, the governor's candidate, Katie Hobbs is also the
00:30:00.680 secretary of state. And also when, you know, most Republicans are going to the polls on election day,
00:30:05.780 while Democrats have, have already banked a lot of their vote early, just absolutely invites
00:30:11.180 skepticism and questions about, uh, you know, why that sort of thing is occurring. I, and look,
00:30:18.480 we'll find out in the end. Um, I hope everybody who wanted to vote, got to vote. My parents ended up
00:30:23.020 getting to vote. So it, you know, doesn't seem like, uh, it may not have hampered or, um, dampened
00:30:30.160 Republican turnout. We'll have to wait and see, but I would hope, and again, it's, you can't really
00:30:35.980 federalize elections. That's going to be unconstitutional. It's reserved for the states.
00:30:40.900 Um, but it would be nice if, if all these states got together and sent folks down to Florida and learn
00:30:45.620 best practices, because they seem to do a pretty good job of allowing early vote, counting it, getting it
00:30:51.780 out and, and tabulating it and posting it in, you know, in real time so that we know, and it's just
00:31:00.500 the fact that we're waiting, we're going to be waiting for, for days to count votes in Nevada
00:31:04.900 days to count votes, even though the race is over in Pennsylvania. Um, it just invites, uh, you know,
00:31:11.280 it invites speculation and the idea that there's stuff going on behind closed doors that we don't
00:31:16.400 know about. And, and that's not good for the system. It's not good for the integrity of the system.
00:31:20.100 And, and it'd be better if, if everybody just, you know, again, did, did the best practices that
00:31:26.380 are out there so that, that even if we don't need a national law to, to federalize elections,
00:31:30.940 but everybody started doing it the same way because it's the best way to do it.
00:31:35.740 Yeah. Best practices would be a wonderful approach with it. And it doesn't happen. Uh, three
00:31:42.500 electronic voting companies, all private companies, not public, uh, process 92%, processed over 92%
00:31:53.620 of the votes in 2020. Think of that. And most secretaries of state and county clerks who administer
00:32:00.700 these elections have no idea what happens in that black box or how to assure the security of it,
00:32:07.580 nor do the federal agencies that are responsible for the so-called voluntary certification of such
00:32:13.920 machines. Uh, this is madness. Uh, and we're not going to re litigate here today, 2020, but it
00:32:21.840 overhangs everything. The lack of integrity in our electoral system. Uh, and with this, again,
00:32:28.140 a very close election where we thought there'd be a tsunami, uh, and wouldn't have to deal with
00:32:33.880 those questions. Uh, we're back dealing with them, whether it be in New Jersey, whether it be in
00:32:38.320 Pennsylvania, uh, or, uh, or, uh, Arizona. So I just want to say, Tom, it's great having you with us.
00:32:47.000 Uh, we really appreciate your insight and sharing your thoughts with us in the, uh, in the wake of,
00:32:52.740 uh, a tsunami that didn't happen. Uh, we always give our, our guests the, the last word. And if you
00:33:00.320 will, your concluding thoughts, my concluding thoughts are, uh, that we still have a month
00:33:05.820 to go because there's going to be a runoff in Georgia. Um, and depending on what happens out
00:33:11.760 in Arizona and Nevada, you count those votes out there. Um, that race in Georgia could mean a lot.
00:33:19.120 I mean, it could, it might mean nothing depending on how those are, but it could mean a lot. And so,
00:33:24.180 uh, that could also be a repeat of 2020. So get ready for that and, uh, prepare yourselves for
00:33:30.800 another, uh, you know, another month of, of madness. I think the American people, if they're
00:33:37.260 not prepared now, we never will be because we're getting so much practice. Tom Bevin,
00:33:43.120 real clear politics. We thank you so much for being with us. Uh, look forward to talking with
00:33:47.900 you again soon. All right. Thanks Lou. Tom Bevin, real clear politics. Thanks as always for your
00:33:53.800 astute analysis and insight. And thanks everybody for being with us. A reminder,
00:33:59.260 you can follow me on Twitter and truth social at Lou Dobbs. Tomorrow. Our guest is attorney Kurt
00:34:05.260 Olson representing among others, president Trump and Mike Lindell. Please join us tomorrow.
00:34:11.980 Until then, God bless you and may God bless America.