Verdict with Ted Cruz - September 23, 2024


Six Weeks until Election Day-What's Gonna Happen？


Episode Stats

Length

42 minutes

Words per Minute

174.5924

Word Count

7,464

Sentence Count

569

Misogynist Sentences

19

Hate Speech Sentences

10


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.400 Welcome.
00:00:06.160 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.380 And I can't believe it.
00:00:10.660 We are six weeks out until election day.
00:00:15.100 So it's a good time to take a pause.
00:00:18.180 Look at this election.
00:00:19.740 What are going to be the big issues and where we are right now?
00:00:23.120 Senator, I can't believe it.
00:00:24.740 Six weeks is not that long.
00:00:26.200 As of tomorrow, six weeks from tomorrow will be election day.
00:00:31.700 And it will all be over, God willing, unless it ends up and the Democrats have their way.
00:00:36.320 It becomes election month.
00:00:37.780 But we will finally be there.
00:00:39.660 November 5th is six weeks and one day away.
00:00:42.640 And what we're going to do on this podcast is lay out, number one, the presidential.
00:00:46.520 What is it going to come down to?
00:00:48.600 And number two, we're going to make a run across the Senate map and the potential pickup states for Republicans.
00:00:55.980 And give you a state of the race right now, six weeks out.
00:00:59.980 We're going to do all of that.
00:01:01.280 Give you an overview of this final six-week stretch, what to expect heading into election day.
00:01:07.900 Yeah, it's crazy we are here.
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00:02:42.580 So let's talk about the core number one issue, Senator, that you think is going to be it on Election Day.
00:02:50.100 I still think it's overwhelming the economy.
00:02:53.120 I think Kamala Harris, that is still going to be her weakness.
00:02:56.360 And going for price controls, I think it's still going to be a disaster for her to try to sell that to the American people.
00:03:02.140 So I think there are three issues that are front and center.
00:03:05.340 Number one, the economy and really inflation is the most important piece of the economy.
00:03:09.960 Number two is illegal immigration and the chaos at our southern border.
00:03:13.380 And number three is crime.
00:03:14.420 And if you look state by state, those three issues are consistently polling at the top.
00:03:20.800 The economy and illegal immigration go back and forth for one and two, state by state.
00:03:25.500 They both tend in state polls to have about 30 percent of the voters say they're the number one issue.
00:03:32.500 And then everything else drops to single digits after those two.
00:03:35.060 So it's really in crime and illegal immigration are interwoven.
00:03:39.260 So those are similar issues.
00:03:42.120 And listen, as I look at this race, everyone has been whipsawed by the polls going up and down.
00:03:48.940 And Trump is up.
00:03:50.260 Kamala is up.
00:03:50.840 Trump's up.
00:03:51.340 Kamala is up.
00:03:52.420 It's dizzying.
00:03:53.380 It's like watching a tennis match, which I'm sure you like, Ben.
00:03:55.960 But it does get a little crazy going back and forth.
00:04:00.600 At the end of the day, sitting here six weeks out, I am still optimistic.
00:04:06.220 I think it's going to be a good election night.
00:04:08.140 I think Republicans are going to win the White House.
00:04:10.660 I think we're going to win the Senate.
00:04:11.880 And I think we're going to win the House and grow our majority of the House.
00:04:15.360 And the reason is that on those three issues, the top issues, all three of them favor Republicans.
00:04:22.480 At the end of the day, Kamala Harris's entire campaign strategy is built on the approach of hide, dodge, evade, pretend you're not in office, pretend you have no responsibility for the record right now.
00:04:38.520 That can last a while.
00:04:40.160 And with the media helping her, it has lasted a considerable while.
00:04:44.700 But at the end of the day, I think it's just untenable.
00:04:47.320 And so my hope, and this has been my message, I saw Trump.
00:04:51.760 I was with him Thursday night.
00:04:52.960 We had a big event in D.C. where he was standing up against anti-Semitism.
00:04:57.440 It was a really good, really good, really strong event.
00:05:00.500 And, you know, my message to him then and every time I see him is focus on the issues, the fundamental contrast, your record versus her record.
00:05:09.000 Trump's record as president in virtually every respect on the fundamental question, are you better off now than you were four years ago?
00:05:17.900 The answer for virtually everyone is no.
00:05:21.620 And my hope is on the presidential that that gets pounded in a million times between now and Election Day.
00:05:29.440 There also seems to be another problem that Kamala Harris is really facing, and it seems to be enthusiasm.
00:05:36.040 She doesn't have the numbers that you usually traditionally need among minority voters, either Hispanics or African-Americans.
00:05:42.900 And also there's real concerns now of younger voters, 35 and under, staying home.
00:05:48.520 Is that a recipe for disaster?
00:05:50.880 And how much should we read into that six weeks out?
00:05:55.680 Well, A, there's a lack of enthusiasm.
00:05:58.840 B, we've seen younger voters breaking more towards Trump.
00:06:02.060 Because, look, younger voters, it was easy – voting for hope and change is an easy thing for young people to do.
00:06:10.000 But getting mugged by reality has a way of changing your perspective.
00:06:14.780 It's one thing – when you're coming out of four years of Trump and the economy is good, you're safe, and you feel like, okay, I'm going to go with a feel-good vote now.
00:06:23.620 Look, young people are discovering now inflation.
00:06:27.900 They're trying to pay their bills.
00:06:29.180 They go to the grocery store, and holy cow, their paycheck doesn't even cover their expenses.
00:06:35.100 You know, they look at their bills.
00:06:36.620 They try to fill up a tank of gas, and wow, that hurts.
00:06:39.900 And then you look at, say, a young couple that's going to buy their first home.
00:06:43.360 And it was only four years ago that we had 2.5% interest rates.
00:06:49.180 Now you've got 7% interest rates, and young people, I think, are really feeling that.
00:06:54.920 And so that – you've got both decreased enthusiasm, but you also have – the people who are feeling the pinch, the pain of this bad record are many of the people who four years ago pulled the lever for Joe Biden.
00:07:12.080 And then I think they're going to be less eager to do so this time.
00:07:14.960 You know, there's something that you just mentioned there, and it's about people just feeling the pain every time they get their paycheck and it's not enough to cover their bills.
00:07:22.220 There was a big policy that was rolled out, and then I don't know if you've noticed this, but I've noticed it.
00:07:29.660 Like, now it's, like, non-existent.
00:07:31.900 It was this big $25,000 for first-time homebuyers trying to bribe people to vote for Kamala Harris, and I'll give you $25,000 if you haven't bought a house.
00:07:40.780 And now I haven't heard anything about that.
00:07:45.380 Is it because they know that they can't do it – usually they don't mind lying, like they lied multiple times on student loans – or is it because they're not talking about it because they've gotten caught so many times promising things like student loan forgiveness that they haven't been able to do?
00:08:00.140 Yeah, I think people just thought it was gimmicky.
00:08:03.960 I think people were skeptical of it.
00:08:05.900 I can tell you anyone who attended even a basic econ class would know the only effect of that is going to be to raise the cost of houses by $25,000.
00:08:15.520 I mean, that's what it's going to do.
00:08:17.260 You know, it also struck me – it was really, really sharp compared to the bill that passed California that actually Gavin Newsom vetoed that, if I remember right, was $150,000 for a home if you're an illegal alien.
00:08:31.660 And so it was striking that Kamala was offering so much less to American citizens than California Democrats were willing to give to illegals.
00:08:40.160 I just think people heard that, and it just sounded like BS to them.
00:08:47.000 Well, let's talk about also the price controls on food.
00:08:50.420 I mean, it's clearly a communist idea.
00:08:54.060 It was one that was just obliterated when she said it by so many on TV.
00:09:00.660 One of those – and it was an interesting point because I think it stuck with me – was Kevin O'Leary.
00:09:04.680 He's one of the guys on Shark Tank.
00:09:06.160 I think a lot of Americans that maybe aren't watching, you know, like CNBC, but they know Shark Tank, and when he said what he said, it went viral.
00:09:16.580 And I think it went viral because people know him from Shark Tank, and they actually kind of like him.
00:09:21.560 And this is what he said back in August, and it's still today showing up on my timeline with, I think it was 40 or 50 million views.
00:09:29.940 Kevin, since you brought that up, she's calling it price gouging, you know, price controls, price fixing, whatever it is.
00:09:37.400 I'm wondering why we aren't hearing more business leaders, more grocery store operators coming out and saying this plan is crazy, it doesn't work.
00:09:47.780 Why are we hearing more of them push back on this?
00:09:50.660 Oh, they're coming.
00:09:51.760 Don't worry.
00:09:52.880 Don't worry.
00:09:53.720 There's a lot of narrative going on in the background waiting for Labor Day to pass.
00:09:57.620 This policy, the best way to describe it, is un-American.
00:10:02.800 And let me explain why.
00:10:04.400 In America, we don't tell a farmer what to sell his apple for, and we don't tell a grocer what to sell it for.
00:10:11.880 That's how our economy works.
00:10:13.480 We don't have the ministry of grocery pricing.
00:10:16.100 There's no way to monitor this.
00:10:18.280 We tried it in the 70s.
00:10:20.080 They tried it in the late 80s in the Soviet Union.
00:10:22.900 They've been trying it in Venezuela.
00:10:25.340 It leads to shortages and hyperinflation.
00:10:29.200 This policy is beyond bad.
00:10:31.760 It's insane.
00:10:32.740 And I think it will go nowhere.
00:10:34.760 I get why she's doing it.
00:10:36.240 It's populist.
00:10:37.320 But we're all waiting for when she has to sit in front of you, a reporter, who will ask her how she's going to implement this.
00:10:45.520 That's when this falls apart.
00:10:46.960 There is no way to do this.
00:10:49.300 And every time it's tried, it's ended up in an absolute catastrophe.
00:10:53.600 Every time it's been tried, it ends up in an absolute catastrophe.
00:10:56.880 And this clip was back in August when he said it.
00:10:59.900 And yet still, it seems like it's breaking news for people that are in normal middle America.
00:11:05.180 Now, I will say there are a couple of premises of what he said that have proven false.
00:11:09.580 Number one, he says when she sits in front of you, a reporter, well, she's not sitting in front of reporters.
00:11:15.100 And he said who, secondly, will ask her how she's going to do it.
00:11:17.840 The handful of times she has sat in front of her reporters, they throw softballs to her and ask her how she became so amazing and wonderful.
00:11:25.140 And, you know, I'm waiting for the what's your favorite ice cream, although that's their Joe Biden question.
00:11:29.740 So she's not getting any pushback from the press.
00:11:32.900 That being said, like you made a comment when you said that the price controls were communist.
00:11:39.160 And it reminded me of, you know, during the debate, Trump said, well, she's a Marxist and her father was a Marxist professor.
00:11:45.560 And I got to say, both when you said it and when he said it, I think to some people that seems a little jarring.
00:11:51.140 Because the word communist or Marxist just sounds like an insult.
00:11:55.300 It's like you're calling someone, you know, just a jerk.
00:11:57.780 But look, being a Marxist, being a communist, that is an actual thing.
00:12:04.840 It is something that has substance and content.
00:12:08.420 Marxism is the philosophy that was taught by Karl Marx, and it is the predicate for communism.
00:12:15.020 And the reason you said, and you said rightly that price controls are communist, but this is not even theoretical Marxism.
00:12:22.000 Actually, theoretical Marxism doesn't have a whole lot about price controls.
00:12:26.340 It is rather practical Marxism that you look at communist countries, you look at the Soviet Union, you look at Cuba, you look at Venezuela.
00:12:38.120 And what they end up doing is the government fixes prices and says, okay, if you want a gallon of milk, we're going to say a gallon of milk is a dollar.
00:12:47.760 And then they just pick a number, and they pick a number that they want to sound low because people will be happy.
00:12:51.720 And then what O'Leary said is what happens.
00:12:56.420 The price controls are always wrong, and you end up having massive shortages.
00:13:02.180 So if you looked at the Soviet Union, you just saw empty grocery shelves.
00:13:05.980 So it was great.
00:13:06.600 You had a dollar for a gallon of milk.
00:13:08.260 There was just no milk.
00:13:09.440 But you were really happy it was so cheap if it were there.
00:13:12.060 And that O'Leary is right that every place it has been tried, it fails.
00:13:19.520 And the reason is a price is reflecting millions of inputs and outputs and its supply and demand meeting each other.
00:13:27.440 And the government has never been smart enough to figure that out.
00:13:31.980 They always, always, always get it wrong.
00:13:34.360 And this is where leftists say, well, next time we'll do it better.
00:13:36.700 Well, it never has been.
00:13:39.320 Nobody ever has gotten it right.
00:13:41.540 And I'm willing to venture that Kamala is not smarter than everyone else who's tried price controls in the past.
00:13:48.740 So when you look at this as an issue, Larry Kudlow, when it came out, he said, this is price controls, controls by any other name, and let's just call it what it is.
00:13:59.160 It's been a failure.
00:14:00.820 But he also warned about what happens with the black market.
00:14:04.160 And he said, he went in and he said, let's just talk about profits, because she kept coming back.
00:14:11.360 And this is what the Democrats do.
00:14:12.400 They demonize people that make money.
00:14:14.180 And he and he said, let's just talk about corporate margins.
00:14:17.360 And he said, if they're gouging somebody, they must be enormously profitable.
00:14:22.660 And they are not referring to grocers.
00:14:25.200 Right.
00:14:25.420 He said, OK, he said, grocery store profit margin is one point two percent.
00:14:30.020 The meat, beef and poultry, four point seven percent.
00:14:33.300 All of American businesses, by the way, are well above that at eight and a half percent.
00:14:38.040 And he said, look, if she wants to go after somebody for making too much money, Apple, for example, they make twenty six percent.
00:14:45.280 Microsoft, thirty six percent.
00:14:48.360 Navita, fifty three percent.
00:14:49.980 He said, so the idea that the grocery market is the problem with a grocery store's profit margin on average last year was one point two percent, he said, is total insanity.
00:15:03.200 And this is her just trying to blame her bad policies on somebody else.
00:15:08.180 Well, look, she has a political imperative to do this, which is people are really unhappy with inflation.
00:15:14.220 They're unhappy with the economy.
00:15:15.580 They're unhappy with illegal immigration.
00:15:17.440 They're unhappy with crime.
00:15:19.260 And so she knows.
00:15:21.320 I mean, remember the debate, the very first question asked in the debate is, are you better off now than you were four years ago?
00:15:26.460 Now, that is there's such a powerful, inherent impetus to this that.
00:15:33.680 Well, OK, listen to what Tim Waltz had to say on exactly this point.
00:15:37.720 We can't afford.
00:15:40.740 We can't afford four more years of this.
00:15:44.780 Senator, that should be an ad that's instantly made, not just for Trump, but I think for anybody running for office like Harris and Waltz.
00:15:52.200 I mean, it's right in front of him.
00:15:54.400 It's on the podium.
00:15:55.960 The signs are behind him in Pennsylvania.
00:15:58.120 And he says, we can't handle four more years of this.
00:16:01.020 And yet it's her policies that got us to where we are right now.
00:16:04.620 Yeah, I don't know if the Trump campaign is actually put out as an ad.
00:16:08.260 I know I've seen on Twitter that clip.
00:16:10.520 And then I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message because it literally that the inherent impetus to say, are you better off now than you are four years ago?
00:16:19.000 Tim Waltz is saying, we can't afford four more years of this.
00:16:22.720 Wait a second.
00:16:23.460 Kamala Harris is in charge.
00:16:25.680 She and Joe Biden are both in.
00:16:30.460 They are the president and vice president.
00:16:33.480 And that's their fundamental problem is they're trying to run a change campaign of everything sucks.
00:16:40.560 So vote for me and I'll change it.
00:16:42.340 But she's the one in office.
00:16:45.500 And listen, it's incumbent.
00:16:46.660 The media are not going to point that out.
00:16:49.340 Kamala is not going to point that out.
00:16:50.900 So it is incumbent on the Trump campaign to point that out.
00:16:54.760 All right.
00:16:55.380 So you mentioned the Trump campaign and Donald Trump has already said it made it very clear he's not having another debate.
00:17:00.720 Kamala Harris has said, I want another debate after the last one.
00:17:04.600 There's a vice presidential debate that's coming up in the next six weeks.
00:17:08.780 Usually and traditionally, vice presidential debates don't really move the needle when it comes to the polls.
00:17:15.180 They just don't.
00:17:15.980 Now, that can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.
00:17:19.060 But traditionally, it doesn't move the needle.
00:17:22.080 Is this vice presidential debate, in your opinion, any more important because there was only one debate between these two beforehand?
00:17:29.340 Look, I think some people will watch it.
00:17:30.960 You and I will watch it because we're both politics nerds.
00:17:33.800 But I think the viewership will be a fraction of the viewership that watched Trump versus Harris.
00:17:40.800 And I think it'll probably be the two of them just pounding the hell out of each other.
00:17:46.120 I suspect neither of them like each other very much, and I think it'll be nasty.
00:17:51.920 I think they'll be snarky.
00:17:53.420 I think they'll be, you know, J.D. is very bright.
00:17:57.720 Waltz appears to be bright as well.
00:17:59.540 So I think they'll both be just slugging it out.
00:18:02.780 But I do not see the VP debate as moving a significant number of votes either direction.
00:18:09.400 But it goes back to, like you said earlier, it's the economy stupid.
00:18:12.940 I want to deal with the second issue on your list, and that was illegal immigration.
00:18:16.500 And also, it really does come into the also the issue of crime.
00:18:20.000 We're going to deal with that in a moment.
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00:20:17.100 So let's move to subject number two that you think is really, and it's polling, not just you saying this or I'm saying this,
00:20:24.480 it's polling at number two, and it is the issue of an open or an illegal immigration.
00:20:32.660 Democrats, I don't think, realize how big of a liability this was going to be for them,
00:20:37.080 but we're seeing it play out in places like Aroa, Colorado.
00:20:41.340 We're seeing it play out in New York City.
00:20:43.280 We're seeing it playing out in all of these major, quote, sanctuary cities that they bragged about just two years ago in the election.
00:20:51.520 We're a sanctuary city.
00:20:52.720 We're a sanctuary city.
00:20:53.840 We're a welcoming city.
00:20:54.820 We're a loving city.
00:20:56.080 Hell, I mean, the mayor of New York City was running on that, that we're a sanctuary city.
00:21:00.840 Now he's like, get out of here.
00:21:02.100 You're ruining my city.
00:21:03.580 That is going to be a big liability on Election Day.
00:21:05.820 Yeah, and look, broadly speaking, there are two major demographic trends in America.
00:21:13.340 Number one, blue-collar voters are moving right.
00:21:17.220 That is moving Midwestern states more Republican.
00:21:20.700 But number two, suburban voters, and in particular suburban women, have been moving left.
00:21:25.900 And that has been moving big suburban states like Georgia, like Texas, like Arizona.
00:21:31.560 They've been getting more purple because they have large suburban populations.
00:21:34.980 Part of the reason that illegal immigration is such a powerful issue, this race, is that with suburban women, illegal immigration is often topping the list of their top issue.
00:21:48.840 And listen, for many suburban women in 2020, they were not particularly fond of Trump's tone and his rhetoric.
00:21:56.740 And even though they agreed with him on the issues, they didn't like the way he said it, and many of them voted Democrat.
00:22:04.880 The question now, as illegal immigration and crime has gotten worse and worse, is, okay, you're a suburban mom.
00:22:13.620 Do you really want an MS-13 gangbanger living next door to you and threatening your kids?
00:22:18.540 And it's becoming real when they see Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado, or in El Paso, or in Chicago.
00:22:29.680 When they see day after day after day Americans being killed, women being raped, children being raped by illegal immigrants being released, that fundamentally starts to – it really goes to safety and security.
00:22:50.940 It becomes real.
00:22:51.560 It becomes, wait, this is threatening my family.
00:22:56.060 And so that is an issue which I hope every day between now and Election Day, the economy and illegal immigration are every day, every topic, all day long.
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00:23:39.640 When you look at not just the issue of safety, is the issue of the financial burden on the community becoming enough of an issue that it is going to matter on Election Day?
00:23:52.560 I say that because in Colorado, for example, in Denver, they're actually having to move resources around.
00:23:59.640 They're not able to hire an adequate police force because so much money is now going to take care of illegal immigrants.
00:24:07.280 New York City, it is a drain on their economy, not just the safety aspect, but a drain financially, the amount of money it's taking.
00:24:17.480 Is that also one of the things that you think Democrats maybe didn't calculate when they were figuring this one out?
00:24:23.400 Yeah, I think that's a bigger issue for Democrat politicians than it is for voters.
00:24:29.160 So if you're the mayor of New York, the financial drain's a real problem because you've got to figure out where to get the money for all these hotel rooms that you're putting illegal aliens in.
00:24:39.040 I'm not sure the voters necessarily make the connection between where that money is coming from.
00:24:45.360 I mean, it is an issue, but I think a far more potent issue in New York City, for example, is we covered on a podcast a few weeks ago the reports that 75 percent, 75 percent of the crimes in Midtown Manhattan were being committed by illegal aliens.
00:25:02.640 I mean, that is a stunning number.
00:25:04.620 That is a number that I think people understandably get really upset about.
00:25:09.320 Why are you bringing criminals into my community?
00:25:13.740 And it's why Kamala is desperately trying to run away from this issue.
00:25:18.440 Look, she has spent her entire career denouncing the wall, arguing for amnesty, saying illegal immigration shouldn't be illegal on every issue.
00:25:26.600 She's been an open border radical.
00:25:28.680 She is right now spending millions of dollars running TV ads with Donald Trump's border wall in it.
00:25:35.660 I mean, it is it is a fundamentally a duplicitous strategy.
00:25:40.700 She's trying to pretend that her record is the exact opposite of what it is.
00:25:45.420 I think that can work sometimes.
00:25:47.860 But but at the end of the day, I'm a big believer that truth will prevail.
00:25:52.040 And I think it's just so fundamentally false.
00:25:55.000 And I think the Democrats are pretty skeptical of the voters.
00:25:59.240 They think the voters are stupid and gullible, frankly, and that they can be conned.
00:26:03.520 I think the voters have more sense than that.
00:26:06.800 You know, you mentioned the moments that stick with us.
00:26:10.140 And I go back to another viral moment that happened this last week.
00:26:14.300 And it was the former chief of Border Patrol agent that was ordered by the Biden-Harris administration to cover up the disastrous numbers at the border.
00:26:25.100 And when he said this to to Congress, it is still at this moment going viral.
00:26:31.660 Once word was out, the border was far easier to cross.
00:26:34.940 San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022.
00:26:38.800 Well, over that in 2023 and even more than that registered this year.
00:26:43.940 These are only the ones we caught.
00:26:45.580 At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests.
00:26:53.140 The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.
00:26:57.760 Fentanyl is another issue.
00:26:59.100 The San Diego area sees between 80 and 90 percent of the methamphetamine and fentanyl seizures annually for our entire country.
00:27:07.060 With little enforcement at the border, these drugs were coming through in mass.
00:27:11.180 During my last year in San Diego, the price for a single pill of fentanyl, for example, went from $10 to 25 cents.
00:27:18.280 To make matters worse, during 2022 and 23, I had to shut down San Diego traffic checkpoints, which are critical for drug interdiction, because the resources had been diverted to the process and release mission.
00:27:31.800 The large numbers also had and still have a negative impact on the San Diego community.
00:27:37.060 I had to release illegal aliens by the hundreds each day into communities who could not support them.
00:27:41.600 To quiet the problem, two flights a week were provided from San Diego to Texas.
00:27:46.300 These flights simply brought aliens that would have been released in San Diego over to Texas.
00:27:50.580 I mean, that's got to just make you livid as the senator from Texas to hear him just say, yeah, they just sent planes and dropped them off in Texas.
00:27:59.580 Well, of course it does.
00:28:00.940 And for this White House, it's all political.
00:28:03.260 And so they've decided, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, that they hate Texas, and they're perfectly happy to dump as many illegal aliens as they can in Texas, never mind the millions that we have flooding into our state because of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' open border policies.
00:28:19.360 Now they're flying them in from other states to Texas.
00:28:21.720 And it is, at the end of the day, completely indefensible.
00:28:28.720 And my hope is that the Trump campaign puts this issue in front of the voters each and every day because Kamala Harris does not want to talk about this.
00:28:39.120 So let's talk about, I think, finally, where we are when it comes to the Senate, which is so important.
00:28:46.500 The Senate, if we don't have control of the Senate, it just makes things so hard, even if you've got the White House, to get stuff done that can have real change and move us back to where we need to go.
00:28:59.540 A lot of people that walk up to me ask me, I'm sure the same questions they ask you, which is, okay, can we flip the Senate?
00:29:06.580 Can we get back control of the Senate?
00:29:08.640 And you've got to look at the swing states, and you've got to look at some tight elections.
00:29:12.460 We thought we were going to have a good chance in the midterms to get the Senate back.
00:29:17.100 We didn't.
00:29:18.660 And so now you look at this time.
00:29:21.760 What does it look like for us?
00:29:23.820 And how should people look at these issues?
00:29:26.380 And how are they going to work in these swing states?
00:29:28.800 So, look, there's good news and bad news.
00:29:30.940 The good news is it's a very favorable map for Republicans.
00:29:34.460 There are a bunch of Democrat seats that are up in red states or purple states that Trump has a real shot of winning.
00:29:43.960 And so six, seven weeks ago, when Biden was at the top of the ticket, Republicans were on track to win four, five, six Senate seats.
00:29:51.740 It was set up to be just a fantastic election.
00:29:55.040 The election has tightened.
00:29:56.180 And Kamala replacing Joe Biden at the top of the ticket has has moved the race of the Democrats direction.
00:30:04.140 And the reason was Joe Biden was only getting about 85 percent of Democrats when when he was the nominee.
00:30:10.820 Democrats were demoralized.
00:30:12.560 They were dispirited.
00:30:13.540 They were fractured.
00:30:15.020 And by the way, those 85 percent, that meant 15 percent were either going to stay home or were looking to vote Republican.
00:30:21.500 And so it was going to be a big, big Republican year.
00:30:24.780 Kamala, with her at the top of the ticket, much of the Democrat party has come home.
00:30:30.500 And so she's getting anywhere from 92 to 95 percent of the Democrats that has moved the races.
00:30:36.820 So right now, the Democrats have a 51 49 advantage in the Senate.
00:30:42.620 If you look at if you assume that the polling today is what would happen.
00:30:49.380 And that's that's not a fair assumption, by the way.
00:30:51.380 We're six weeks out. And and I think the issue set favors Republicans.
00:30:55.380 But if you assume the polling today is what would happen, then number one, Republicans are going to win West Virginia.
00:31:03.780 It's essentially 100 percent that we're going to win West Virginia.
00:31:07.180 Joe Manchin, a Democrat, is the incumbent senator from West Virginia.
00:31:10.660 He's not running for reelection. And so Jim Justice, the governor, is the Republican nominee.
00:31:16.920 The Democrats have essentially conceded West Virginia. It's such a red state.
00:31:20.800 It went for Trump by 38 points last time.
00:31:23.900 We will win West Virginia. That means we start with the Senate at 50 50 of the remaining swing states.
00:31:31.480 The only one where the Senate candidate is consistently leading is Montana.
00:31:36.760 But we are consistently leading in Montana.
00:31:39.040 That means if if the election day were today and the polls are accurate, the result would be 51 49, a Republican majority.
00:31:47.480 Now, let's break through state by state.
00:31:49.800 What are the states that are in play?
00:31:51.500 And we'll just go alphabetically through through through the various swing states.
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00:33:25.020 All right, Senator.
00:33:25.520 So let's go through these states.
00:33:26.920 And this is why I say to verdict listeners, grab your pen and paper, because this is where on election night, you're going to love watching the results come in with these different states and the knowledge that we're about to give you.
00:33:40.200 All right.
00:33:40.800 So let's start with Arizona.
00:33:42.000 The best way typically to consume polling numbers is to look to the RealClearPolitics average.
00:33:48.380 And so, look, there are variations among polls.
00:33:51.240 Some polls are more accurate than others.
00:33:53.020 But the way most political professionals do is they look to the polling average.
00:33:57.640 And the theory is the average is sort of – it averages out the ups and the downs.
00:34:03.200 So if you look to the RealClearPolitics average in Arizona right now, this is a race between Gallego, the Democrat, and Carrie Lake, the Republican.
00:34:11.380 Right now, Gallego is leading by 4.3 points.
00:34:14.760 So that's the average.
00:34:15.980 That's the average of the last four polls that have been done in that race.
00:34:18.860 Trump has a good chance of winning Arizona.
00:34:22.280 So right now, Trump is outperforming Carrie Lake in that state.
00:34:26.460 But 4 points is very winnable.
00:34:28.420 She can win that race.
00:34:29.900 But according to the average right now, the Democrats are ahead.
00:34:33.160 Let's move to Michigan.
00:34:34.380 So if you look at Michigan, the two candidates are Slotkin, the Democrat, and Mike Rogers, the Republican.
00:34:42.080 In Michigan, the RealClearPolitics average is the Democrat at 5.1%.
00:34:47.740 So, again, five points is pretty close.
00:34:50.320 But it does show an advantage right now for the Democrats, and that's an average of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 polls in the last month.
00:34:59.580 The Democrat is ahead by an average of 5.1%.
00:35:02.500 All right, let's go to Montana.
00:35:05.380 Montana, I mentioned, is the brightest spot in terms of the pickup.
00:35:09.440 This is a battle between John Tester, the Democrat, the incumbent, and Tim Sheehy, the Republican.
00:35:16.540 And Sheehy is ahead on an average of 5.2 points.
00:35:22.300 So that's sizable.
00:35:24.120 It's not decisive.
00:35:25.120 Tester could still come back and win it.
00:35:27.080 But that's been a consistent lead.
00:35:29.040 If you look at the last four polls, Sheehy plus 6, Sheehy plus 7, Sheehy plus 6, and Sheehy plus 2.
00:35:35.200 So that's been a consistent lead.
00:35:37.720 All right, let's look to Nevada.
00:35:39.680 So Nevada, the numbers are bumpier.
00:35:43.040 The incumbent is Jackie Rosen.
00:35:45.120 She's a Democrat.
00:35:46.380 Sam Brown is a Republican.
00:35:47.660 The real clear politics average is Rosen by 8.8%.
00:35:52.960 So that's a pretty sizable lead.
00:35:56.500 Nevada is another state where Trump is very competitive.
00:35:59.720 And so he could win Trump.
00:36:01.280 It may be that the polling numbers are understating where Brown is, but 8.8% is, there's some distance to be closed on the average polling there.
00:36:12.760 All right, let me ask you this real quick before you move forward, because it's a question I know everybody's asking in their head.
00:36:16.680 All right, you just mentioned this state, and then you mentioned Arizona earlier, where Trump is leading, but Carlyle is not there.
00:36:22.240 How often do you see a presidential election cycle, historically, where the Republican wins in the state, but the person next down the ballot in the Senate race loses, where people walk in and go, yes for Trump and no for the Senate candidate.
00:36:40.700 Does that happen very often?
00:36:42.300 Yeah, that happens with some regularity, and Trump in most states is going to get more votes than the down-ballot Republicans.
00:36:51.840 For one thing, there are people that come in that just vote president and leave.
00:36:56.160 And then there are also, there will be some voters in every one of these states who votes for Trump at the top of the ticket, and then for a Democrat Senate candidate.
00:37:05.960 I wish they didn't.
00:37:07.220 It is frustrating as all get-out, but there exists.
00:37:10.600 And to be fair...
00:37:11.840 Because in a weird way, you're like voting against your own interests of what you're saying you want for the country with the president.
00:37:16.420 Well, he needs the votes in the House and Senate to get that agenda done.
00:37:19.340 Yeah, and there tend to be more crossover voters who do Trump in a Democrat Senate candidate than there are crossover voters who vote Kamala Harris in a Republican Senate candidate.
00:37:29.680 It just, at the end of the day, it has tended to be a one-way ratchet.
00:37:35.200 All right, let's go to Ohio.
00:37:36.980 Ohio is the next closest after Montana.
00:37:39.920 And the two candidates are Sherrod Brown, the Democrat who's the incumbent, Bernie Moreno, the Republican.
00:37:46.980 The RealClearPolitics average is the Democrat up by 3.6%.
00:37:51.240 So the last three polls were plus two, plus five, plus four.
00:37:55.600 So Ohio is definitely winnable.
00:37:59.020 Trump is extremely likely to win Ohio.
00:38:01.380 He could win Ohio by double digits.
00:38:03.160 But right now, Brown is polling substantially ahead of where Kamala Harris is in Ohio.
00:38:09.760 And so Ohio is a state where there are a number of voters right now who say they're voting for Donald Trump and yet a Democrat senator who will fight to undermine everything Trump does every single day in the Senate, which is why I wish voters wouldn't do that.
00:38:23.400 I don't think that makes sense.
00:38:24.520 And I think it ends up working against yourself.
00:38:27.360 But nonetheless, there are some voters that do.
00:38:29.800 All right.
00:38:30.440 Pennsylvania.
00:38:30.920 So Pennsylvania is probably the most important battleground in the country.
00:38:36.560 It is the state most likely to decide the presidential race.
00:38:41.060 The incumbent is Bob Casey.
00:38:42.920 He's a Democrat.
00:38:44.780 Dave McCormick, the Republican, a very good friend of mine who I've endorsed and campaigned with multiple times across Pennsylvania.
00:38:51.780 The RealClearPolitics average is 4.9%.
00:38:56.820 And so starting from – so back in August, there was a tie, then Casey plus 1, then Casey plus 7, then Casey plus 8, then Casey plus 4, then Casey plus 9, then Casey plus 5, then Casey plus 5, then Casey plus 9.
00:39:12.600 And then the Washington Post, the most recent poll showed it was a tie.
00:39:17.020 So look, there's some variability on that.
00:39:20.460 So the last two polls were Casey plus 9 and a tie.
00:39:24.060 I mean, that's a big delta between those two.
00:39:27.420 Yeah.
00:39:28.580 That's the head scratcher.
00:39:30.840 And so it's why you tend to look to the average, because the average kind of takes out the highs and lows.
00:39:37.580 And so 4.9%, you would say right now the Democrats have an advantage.
00:39:43.400 But 4.9%, you can definitely close between now and Election Day.
00:39:46.960 And I think the issue set favors us.
00:39:50.880 All right.
00:39:51.400 Maryland.
00:39:52.520 Maryland is a state that shouldn't be a battleground.
00:39:54.920 It's a very blue state.
00:39:56.260 It is going to go – it is going to go for Kamala Harris by double digits.
00:40:02.980 And yet you've got Larry Hogan.
00:40:04.780 Larry Hogan, the former governor there, is a Republican, very popular governor, running against a Democrat, also Brooks.
00:40:11.460 The real clear politics average is 6.8%.
00:40:15.640 But again, there's been a lot of variability on this.
00:40:19.400 So back in August, there was a poll that was a tie.
00:40:23.960 And then Democrat plus 5, Democrat plus 7, and then there was one just recently, Democrat plus 15.
00:40:30.360 So Maryland is a race that is winnable.
00:40:33.860 But to do that, Hogan is going to have to outperform Trump by 20 points or more.
00:40:39.840 That ain't easy to do.
00:40:41.120 That is a big, big delta.
00:40:45.060 He was the governor there.
00:40:46.400 He was very popular.
00:40:47.800 And he's the only – he's the only Republican who has a prayer to win in Maryland.
00:40:54.940 But Maryland is not an easy state for a Republican to win.
00:40:57.900 And the final battleground is Wisconsin.
00:41:00.700 Wisconsin is Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who's the incumbent.
00:41:05.000 Eric Hovde is the Republican running against her.
00:41:07.720 The real clear politics average is Democrat 4.6%.
00:41:13.180 So again, close, winnable, but right now the Democrats have the advantage.
00:41:17.800 Although it's interesting, if you look at the polls going back to August, it was Democrat plus 6, Democrat plus 5, Democrat plus 8.
00:41:26.380 But then the last four polls have been Democrat plus 3, Democrat plus 3, Democrat plus 4, Democrat plus 3.
00:41:34.020 So the race has tightened in the last couple of weeks, and it's about a 3.5 point differential in the last four polls, which means Wisconsin is very winnable.
00:41:45.680 And look, every one of these states that I mentioned is winnable by the Republicans.
00:41:50.260 But for us to win, the numbers need to shift four or five points.
00:41:55.160 And to do that, we've got to focus on the issues, and the issues are the same issues as the presidential.
00:42:02.300 The economy, inflation, illegal immigration, and crime.
00:42:05.880 And if we focus on those, I think we've got a real shot at winning every one of those.
00:42:10.380 Six weeks, it's getting here very quickly, Election Day, and early voting, it's incredible.
00:42:16.220 We are in it now.
00:42:17.560 I hope you guys will take the show, share it wherever you are on social media.
00:42:21.820 Make sure you hit that subscribe or auto-download button.
00:42:24.020 We'll keep covering these important poll numbers as they come out.
00:42:28.060 And on those in-between days, as you know, we do the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
00:42:31.660 On those in-between days, grab my show, the Ben Ferguson podcast, and I'll keep you up to date on the latest breaking news as well.
00:42:37.640 The Senator and I will see you back here Wednesday morning.
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