Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/28/24: Trump MSG Rally With Kill Tony, Trump May Win Popular Vote, Pollsters Making Things Up

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump's MSG rally, Trump could win popular vote, MSNBC says hard to ignore Trump surge, pollsters making things up.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastain.

And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Coming down to the wire here, of course, in terms of the election. So we have a lot of news for you there.

Trump has his big Madison Square Garden rally yesterday. And it was really something. Even the Trump campaign distancing themselves from some of the remarks that were made at that rally. So we'll bring you all of that. We've, of course, also got all of the latest polls to try to figure out where this race is. Spoiler alert, it's still 50-50 and very close. We've got some comments from Michelle Obama directed towards men in particular, and also a little hot mic moment from Kamala Harris, where she seems to indicate that they have ground to make up there among men in the country. So we'll bring you that as well. Trump winning some Muslim

American endorsements in the state of Michigan. Absolutely wild scene there given past history. Jeff Bezos deciding seemingly to curry favor with Trump by withholding an endorsement by his paper, the Washington Post, stoking a lot of controversy there. The LA Times also deciding not to endorse in this race. They're giving a different reason though for their rationale. So we'll break all of that down for you. We have Dr. Trita Parsi on to talk about the very latest with regard to Iran and Israel. Israel finally launching that, you know, what they describe as a retaliatory attack towards Iran. There's a lot that's interesting there. So we'll get into that as well. Absolutely. Can't wait for that. Before we do, thank you to all of our premium subscribers. We're coming down to the wire eight days until election day right now. We are filming our content today with Logan Phillips,

our election partner. He'll be here on election night as well. Go ahead and sign up breaking points.com. So you get exclusive access both to some of that premium election content. Our predictions will drop there first on who's going to win, what are electoral maps and all that will be in addition to some great subscriber benefits on election night. So breakingpoints.com, you can become a subscriber. But as Crystal mentioned, Trump was at Madison Square Garden. Let's get to it. I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico. All right. Heck yeah. It's a cool black guy with a thing on his head. What the hell is that? A lampshade? Look at this guy. Oh my goodness. Wow. I'm just kidding. That's one of my buddies. He had a Halloween party last night. We had fun. We carved watermelons together. It was awesome. In fact, she is the devil, whoever screamed that out.

She is the antichrist. And there's not one moment I've ever been with him off camera where he's spending his time grousing about people he hates. Ever. He's talking about the people and the country he loves in his private time. Trust me. You know something, Trump maniacs? I don't see no stinking Nazis in here.

I don't see no stinking domestic terrorists in here. The only thing I see in here are a bunch of hardworking men and women that are real Americans, brother. So that was before Donald Trump even took the stage. It was, as I described, full MAGA. I would put it as a mini RNC, effectively. Lots of controversy this morning over Tony Hinchcliffe's joke there about Puerto Rico. In fact, the Trump campaign themselves have come out and they've distanced them from it. Let me go ahead and read you what they said in a statement this morning. Quote, the joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign. So I'm sure there will be a lot of bedwetting over this on both sides.

What I mean by that, Crystal, is not the liberal freak out over it. But on the Republican side, there's a big debate over like, why should you even apologize over a joke? I like Tony. I think he did a great job specifically at the Tom Brady roast and previously. The thing is, and this is what I've been thinking about, the reason why is that you shouldn't necessarily just have an edgy campaign guy, or sorry, an edgy comedian at a campaign event because it appears as if that is a reflection of the campaign. Yeah. As opposed to at a roast or elsewhere. Now, look, in general, if making a joke about Puerto Rico is literally enough to push you over the edge, I don't know.

I think it's frankly kind of ridiculous, but maybe people vote that way. The point remains that there are 500,000 people of Puerto Rican descent apparently in the state of Pennsylvania. Philly has one of the largest communities in the country. Our old friend Chuck Rocha, who runs that Latino-focused Noestra pack or whatever, and he's already raising money. He's like, give me money so I can text this to everybody. Bad Bunny came out and endorsed Kamala Harris immediately after this came out. So look, will it make a big difference? I don't know. But I

think that the point stands that in general, like nine days out for this the the Puerto Rico joke It just doesn't appear to be helpful I guess the counter case to what I would say is everyone said that about Springfield everyone said it about God I covered 2016 judge Curiel Qasir Khan and all stuff didn't matter if anything the controversy he's so racist this time look at this all of that It didn't work, right? So I'm not so sure it's going to be like totally determinative. The way I saw MSG and the rally yesterday, I tweeted this, was this was basically a mini RNC, the most storied venue in the country.

Their goal was to dominate the conversation, to have a gigantic media spectacle. I think they succeeded. That conversation now centers around them. And the only question is, is it 2016 when that dynamic is to its benefit or is it 2022 when this being on full display is going to repel voters? I genuinely have no answer to that question.

Yeah, I mean, it was like dark RNC. This was like, we're gonna let our freak flag fly. I mean, you got, not just, to fixate on Tony is honestly to miss the overall tenor. No, I agree, but even the rest of that stuff was at the expense. Even if you're just looking at Tony, not only did he call Puerto Rico

a pile of trash in the ocean, there were insults at Jews, at black people. He said they were carving watermelons instead of pumpkins. There were insults at Latinos, at black people. He said they were, you know, carving watermelons instead of pumpkins. There were insults at Latinos, you know, sexual, disgusting sexual joke, even just with Tony. But even if you put that aside, you got this other dude calling Kamala literally the devil and the antichrist. The whole thing, the whole positioning of it is this sort of like worshipful situating as Trump is like going to save us,

like the Jesus Christ figure against Kamala, the antichrist. You had another speaker who referred to her effectively as a sex worker saying she had her, you know, pimplet handler. You had, uh, Hulk Hogan at another point, we played part of his comments. Another point, he seemed to make a, um, Hawk Tua a Hawk Tua joke about Kamala. You had Byron Donalds, who is a black congressman, introduced literally with Dixie the de facto anthem of the Confederacy. And then, of course, you have Trump doing his normal thing, talking about the enemy within, talking about using the Alien Enemies Act, which was last used for Japanese internment. So, you know, the overall question of the rally or why it even existed, to me, it's less about an electoral

consideration. And it's more about creating a sense of inevitability and sort of like domination. You know, and we already see, and we're going to talk about the Washington Post, like Jeff Bezos pulling his endorsement. You see some elites basically hedging their bets, trying to not get on Trump's bad side because they're afraid of that, quote unquote, retribution that could come. So having this very, you know, ominous spectacle in the center of a very diverse, deep blue city. Yeah, I think that's more what it's about. And it ties into, there could be a vibe with it because it seems it's like a lot of bravado. It's basically projecting like, we are already so confident that we've won this thing that we can send Tony Hinchcliffe out there to insult a major critical demographic group in a swing state. Like it almost

has the vibes of like Hillary Clinton popping the champagne on the plane on election day, which also, by the way, happened on the way to New York. But for them, it's sort of true because even if they lose, they're going to claim that they won. And that's the other goal of this rally and the one they're doing in New Mexico, the one they're doing in Virginia, whatever. Trump constantly talking about how, you know, they've got him with 93% odds that he's going to win, et cetera, et cetera, bolstering polymarket and all of these odds makers that show a, you know, wildly improbable probabilities in favor of Trump is to create the sense of inevitability so that if they lose, their supporters will all be primed to think this could not have been fair. It must have been rigged.

And so, you know, that's part of the goal of this rally as well. And, yeah, I mean, it was like I found it very disturbing. I found it really ugly. And to your question of like, you know, the electoral implications and the calculus that went into this, etc. We were talking after the Rogan interview about how the goal for Kamala in these final days is like, I can be commander in chief. The goal for Trump is like, I'm not a fascist. I'm a bro, right? Hanging out with Joe Rogan. Don't think that this rally really served his interests in making him seem less scary, less dark. It, you know, if anything feeds into the closing message of the Harris people of like, listen, you should take seriously what John Kelly, Mark Milley,

Jim Mattis, Mike Pence have to say about who this guy actually is. So, you know, I don't buy that it serves them electorally. And they also have a different coalition than they did in 2016. You know, in 2016, it was all about juicing the white working class vote. Worked for him, obviously, enough to win an electoral college. This time, they are really reliant on eating into Democratic margins with Black and Latino men. So that, I think, is part of why, whereas in the past, in 2016, you know, if there was some racist joke made or whatever, Trump would never have apologized for it. I think the fact that they're trying to court that different coalition or really electorally dependent

on that different coalition is what leads even the Trump campaign to be like, that was too far. See, I don't know. I have a totally different read. I didn't see that. I mean, I think you're primed to see darkness or you're seeing darkness.

I'm trying to look at it as like basically an entertainment event when you literally have Hulk Hogan like ripping his shirt off and coming out and be like, we're not Nazis here. And then you had what, Tony Hinchcliffe and the comedian. The aspect of it to me was just pure camp and entertainment. You could see darkness if you want to and you're taking it seriously.

But the whole point of Trump is that most people don't take him seriously, specifically the people who vote for him or are inclined to do that. So for them, like they see, if anything, the media bedwetting, they love it. There's nothing they love more than to see people call him a fascist or a racist or compare it to Nazi MSG. That's the best thing that could happen for them because they wear it on their sleeves. Then why are they distancing themselves? Okay, they're distancing themselves from one comment. But this anti-Christ stuff, that's like, first of all,

that's like any Republican evangelical event. Not endorsing it, I've always found it creepy and weird. But that's like, first of all, that's like any Republican evangelical event. Not endorsing it. I've always found it creepy and weird. But that's what they do. Well, let's continue. With the Hulk Hogan, Tucker Carlson speech, almost all of it is basically around a vibe of our opponent is a joke. There is a sense of inability. There is domination.

But also what we're missing is there was a lot of like laughter and frankly like exuberance in the room for what they're projecting. I saw another electoral thesis which is swing state voter time is over. At this point like they've either made their decision or not. This is just purely about driving out the base and with that regard I mean look I've spent too much time now in Republican areas. I've talked about this previously and some GOP people will hate this. There is a deep element of Trump support which is on the nose and for lack of a better word, crass. Like in 2020, I remember I told the story a lot. I was driving through rural Nevada and I just saw this gigantic sign this farmer had and it just said, Trump, fuck your feelings. And I've thought about that sign a lot because I think that is everything. I was recently in Pennsylvania at like one of those pumpkin patches or whatever, and there's literally like grown men walking around with like F Your Feelings t-shirts and I'm voting for the convicted felon bumper stickers with truck nuts as we'll get to.

There is a deep element of that. And those people love this and you can hate it if you want, but they like it. You know, it's the whole MAGA meme. There's a, are you offended yet? You know, I'm a white Christian male. Like, does that piss you off? That is a deep part of Trump culturalism, which is aimed directly at the beating heart of institution and of Washington. So I see this as the apotheosis of MAGA.

The question in my mind, is it 2022 or is it 2016? In general for Trump, this stuff doesn't stick. It usually doesn't hurt. This whole fantasy about Latino and black men, I mean, we've talked about this before. It's nice to win a couple more percent, but the vast majority of the electorate, some 74, 75% is white.

55% of those people, no college degree. Median voter in this country, 55-year-old white dude. I mean, I know they're culturally, this aligns most with them. You know who will be most offended by this whole situation is a lot of those white college-educated suburban voters. Okay, but they're Democrats already, right? I mean, they're not. No, they're not. They're actually not. I mean, that's where, listen, I think you're right that this is the kind of beating heart apotheosis of MAGA. And that's what I find so disturbing. I think the deal, the implicit deal that Trump has with his supporters is basically you give me unending loyalty.

And listen, if you watch this and you didn't think that this was like, you know, worship of a cult hero, I don't know what you were looking at. You give me unending loyalty and I will give you permission to indulge the ugliest parts of yourself. That's what was on display here. I mean, Tucker came close to saying it. He said something to the effect of, you know, what we love about Trump is he's given us permission to tell the truth, which is, of course, preposterous when you look at a guy in Donald Trump who probably lies more than like literally any other political figure we've ever seen. But what he means by that is now like we can tell the racist joke about black people and

watermelons or, you know, call Puerto Rico a pile of garbage. We can label our political opponents as the enemy within and threaten to turn the military on them or label them literally the antichrist or the devil, or as one mega supporting evangelical pastor has been calling her like the Jezebel spirit. We can do all of those things. We don't have to pretend that we have this like, you know, veneer of polite society. And it's not about, it's really not about policy because we've seen them be all over the map. We've seen this policy platform this time around, totally different than what it was in 2016. At this same event, you had people who were, you know, spouting policy positions that were

totally at odds with each other. Rudy Giuliani calling all Palestinians terrorists and, you know, cheering for more hawkishness. And then Tulsi Gabbard goes up there and is like, oh, Trump is the anti-war candidate. It doesn't have to be coherent because it's not about that policy. So I don't know what the electoral impact will be. You know, I genuinely I don't think that this served the end that you and I both were saying that Trump had his goal in the final days was to humanize himself and to make it feel preposterous that he was, you know, the sort of like dictatorial, authoritarian, fascist figure. I don't think that this helps him in that regard. You know, is it a game changer? I don't know. But to me, it's just more it's less about the electoral impact and more just about what this movement actually promises to deliver.

You know, I mean, a core promise that he's making that he talked a lot about here. And actually, we can play a little bit of the Trump mashup. I don't know if it includes this part or not. Alien Enemies Act of, what is it, like 1798 or whatever, which was last used to justify internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Like, that's a promise that he makes. He talks about the enemy within. He, you know, this is like a core part of what's being cheered here. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable

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going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think it's ugly. I think it's disturbing. And as I said before, I think the core promise is like, you can wear your fuck your feelings. Sure. You can say like, you know, all of the ugly things that you would normally say in private, like it can now be out in the open. And that's what this is a celebration of. See, this is again, though, where you're seeing it as disturbing. And I'm like, I'm just looking at it analytically. What it comes from is people feel truly like the Washington establishment, media institutions, et cetera, not only have left them behind.

And I'm not even talking about economically. I'm talking almost purely culturally. And their rage has now been bubbling for almost 25 years. So this is a logical and frankly, like, very predictable and political expression of that. I think there's a lot to that. I also think that that rage can be directed towards, you know, the corporate CEOs and billionaires and elite class that have created vast inequalities in this country. Or it can be directed at, you know, a group of vulnerable migrants to be scapegoated, which, yes, I think is really ugly. This is a very common talking point.

Again, the fact is. It's a reality. Yeah, but Democrats have tried it. And the truth is that people don't like when millions of illegal immigrants come to their country. That's not scapegoating. It's a pure fact. No country on earth would accept the level of illegal migration that we've had. And they rightfully blame a lot of elites for washing that away and just saying, oh, it's actually not a problem.

It doesn't matter if your community gets totally flooded or whatever. We've had this debate a million times. Yeah, but to pretend like the whole problem in this country is immigrants, is preposterous. Well, a big problem is illegal immigration. And most people believe that. In fact, if you look at, you know, you're talking about Alien and Sedition. There was an Axios poll or whatever, and it was like, how many Americans support putting illegal immigrants in camps and deporting them? It was 47%.

It was even the vast majority of independents. People think illegal migration is a disaster. I can dispute your electoral point. I'm really not disputing your electoral point. Although, I do think that the polling on immigration is a lot more complex than you say, because if you ask them also, should there be a pathway to citizenship for people who are here, who are undocumented, they also say yes. And they definitely don't support like, let's totally close our borders and have net zero migration. So putting the electoral point aside,

though, it's a moral point. I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong. I think it's ugly. I think it's an inaccurate picture of where the problems in this country actually stem from. I think it's cheap to take shots at people who are largely powerless, who are oftentimes escaping systems of persecution that our country basically set up. Many of the migrants who are coming here are fleeing from countries that we have incredibly onerous sanctions on. So, yeah, I think it's cheap, it's ugly, and it's wrong. You know, the electoral point, like, we'll see how it works out. Next week, we'll have an answer to that very quickly. But, you know, my fear is that it actually is too effective, that it does work, that there is a large appetite for it. But I'm also not convinced of that yet. I mean, fair enough. I guess I would just say you're free to morally object, but it's a democracy. People get to vote how they want.

And I don't generally believe in like tis-tissing at people and saying, oh, it's actually not a problem. Like we should hear what it is. Like, look, do I live my life with a Fear Feelings t-shirt and truck nuts? No, I don't. And honestly, I don't have a lot of like, I don't really get it, period. But I can anthropologically look at them and be like, okay, well, there's something going on here. And for me, like full MAGA, basically what that

rally was, is that is a political and cultural expression of, frankly, a very ignored force and of one which people feel is not accurately reflected in their higher institutions of culture, media, and at a certain point, like you do have to, if it wins, people should ask a lot of questions about how did that happen? What exactly led to this? If you want to make that corporate argument, you know, I mean, frankly, look, I don't even disagree, but the truth is, is that people don't care. I hate to say it, but every time that they've tried the so-called deliverism and this argument, especially in the face of mass illegal migration, it's rejected almost entirely.

To the extent that Democrats have won any ground, it's with rich, college-educated whites who are culturally look-at-the-truck-nuts-and-the-fuck-your-feelings t-shirt and are repulsed by their fellow American equally as the other person wild thing to say though when Republicans when was the last time they even won the popular vote uh well uh 2004 so yeah I mean you act like this is the vast majority of the country number one I mean it's pretty damn close and even in the electoral number one I mean but that's pretending like the only thing anyone cares about is immigration. Number one, Democrats have embraced a very hawkish, but to pretend like, you know, the anti-immigrant position is one that isn't held by elite politicians is at this point preposterous. It's my view that doesn't exist among elite politicians. You don't hear it from Democrats at this point whatsoever. Yeah, but you heard it two years ago, five years ago.

Number two, like there's this posturing like this is this overwhelming majority that's being ignored. And it's like, no, actually, it's it is a minority, as evidenced by, you know, every election since Donald Trump has been on the scene where he has never won the popular vote and where Republicans lost in 2018, lost in 2022, et cetera. And, you know, so it it also overstates how popular this mode of politics has been proven to be. So, like I said, listen, I'm really not making an electoral point because I'm humble about I don't know what's going to happen next week. and love calling for immigrants to be rounded up and put in camps and love, you know, saying Kamala Harris is the Antichrist, or at least just, you know, are happy to ignore it for whatever reason, that could certainly be the case. I'm making the point that, you know, immigrants are not the problem in this country. They are not the reason why, by and large, housing prices are high. They are not the reason why it's so hard to afford health care.

They are not the reason why education costs have skyrocketed so dramatically. They are, you know, yes, there is an issue with we need to get the border in control. I personally think we actually be better off as a country if we let in far more legal immigrants than we have. But, you know, I just think that this direction for the country is ugly, bad, and wrong. That's my bottom line. Again, I think that's fair. I've made various counter-arguments as to why. But in general, again, you want to listen to people and you don't want to try and override their concerns. And I fundamentally believe, and I actually tweeted this the other day, I don't think it's the economy stupid. I think it's immigration stupid. I think that if Trump wins this election, and specifically if he also wins a popular vote, which I think there's a

27% chance, according to Nate Silver, it will be the clearest mandate and or electoral signal in modern history, especially because a lot of the retconning of 2016, if we go back and look, if there was a study done by the CSPI, I want to say, we talked about it in 2020, where the vast majority of people who voted for Trump did so because of immigration. And I've just come around to the fact that immigration is the singular defining issue of the Republican Party. I think abortion is now the defining issue. Either of those two reconcilable questions will be determined on Election Day as to what it is. And democratically, it does need to be solved or at least found like some sort of status quo like we did previously in eras. Because otherwise, you know, if you care about

taxes or whatever, the vast majority of people these days are not voting on that. They can claim what they want. I've seen too much swing state data on immigration for Republicans. It is literally the number one thing that they're running ads on. Oh, for Republicans. No, it's not. No. The Republicans have reduced their ad spending on immigration. But the trans... They're predominantly spending money on trans panic and, like, you know, taxes, economic pace. I disagree with that because the trans ad is all about illegal immigration. It's specifically, when you watch it, they're, like, talking about transgender surgeries for illegal migrants from the clip of 2019. I mean, look, you've said it

before too. A lot of that is just coding Kamala as too liberal. Is that immigration trans? Whatever. I mean, at the end of the day, it's not economic. I know that one. On Democrats, they're trying with taxes. We talked about with Logan last week, but a huge part of it is just abortion too. So, you know, what does the mandate say if Kamala wins? I would say if Kamala wins, that the mandate is actually that this MAGA, you know, F you're feeling stuff does not land in the way that I think it does. And people should be very humble about that too, which they won't. I think you're right.

They'll say that the election was stolen, but vice versa. You know, if that, if that wins, people should really take a step and be like, okay, what, what's going on here? You know, why that wins, people should really take a step and be like, okay, what's going on here? You know, why did this happen? Yeah, maybe. Although it's also like, you know, the election's probably going to be decided by like a tiny sliver of votes. Maybe, yeah. So, you know, there will be many things right into that.

Look, there's nuance to everything. Should I say that 90% of people agree with me or with you? Of course not. Yeah, I'm just saying like I think there's a tendency sometimes in an election that's very narrow to read into that, like, oh, the public overwhelmingly thinks this or the public overwhelmingly thinks that when it's really like, you know, 20,000 people in Wisconsin or whatever, you know. So I don't think that our deep divides in the country, I don't think we'll learn anything that much more profoundly different about the deep divides that exist in the country, depending on whether this is a narrow win by Trump or a narrow win by Kamala.

All right. Should we hear? Do you want to play Trump? I was just going to skip it. All right. It's the same shit that he said. Here's the thing. To me, Trump is a secondary character almost for this because Trump himself and what he

says does not matter, as we see at the rally. You can be anti-war and you can say the Palestinians, what did he say, are raised at age two years old to slaughter people. The contradiction is the point. The contradiction is the fact that the cultural saying, fuck you, to the elites, that's it. That's basically it. That's not to the elites. Okay, fine.

It's to vulnerable immigrants. Fine, to elite tastemakers who think that it's okay to have 12 million people illegally let in your country or who don't think it's that big of a deal or whatever. It's about, you know, even culturally to the extent—I mean, I've talked about this before. You can't turn a TV on without seeing, like, some transgender couple or whatever in a TV show shoehorned in for no reason. I mean, it's annoying. It is annoying. I mean, it's annoying. It is annoying. I mean, right? Because it's obviously a social agenda of which is held by a small sliver of the country

trying to be imposed on the vast majority of people. Well, no. People don't hate trans people the way you think that they do, Sovereign. I don't think that people hate trans people. I don't hate trans people. I think people should be able to do what they want. I don't like gender ideology and specifically the way that it's messaged towards children. Or, I mean, we haven't covered this yet, but there was a landmark study about puberty blockers that somehow got held up at the

NIH because it happened to prove that it didn't work so well for the people who do that. Those are legitimate issues. And that's my point is that- But you didn't start with that. You started with seeing a transgender couple in a commercial. Which is what? Which is a signal of what? Which is a signal of, hey, it's cool to be who you are. No big deal. Which is something that most Americans agree with. Which is why the, like, you know, transgender panic in 2022 didn't pan out.

Because people were like, all right, whatever. Yeah, because they care more about abortion. Because they care more about other stuff. Because, you know. Well, I didn't say it's the only issue. Megan Kelly out there being like, oh, high school athletes, transgender high school athletes is my number one issue. Like, that's an insane fringe view. But it actually is. I don't think you do hold that view.

But that is like a kind of a core belief. Like, she gets a lot of praise for that in the Republican Party. And, you know, so that's become a center of energy among this group as well. But anyway, we're getting far afield now. The trans thing was just a metaphor for the idea that social liberalism dominates at the very high commanding heights of the American culture, from Disney to Wicked or whatever, and that people are annoyed by it to the point where, yeah, they like the mega apotheosis because they want those people to cry tears and to feel bad. I sympathize. I understand that

feeling. Do I think it's all that productive? No, not necessarily. But I mean, it's politics, right? We have to learn a little bit from what Vox Populi, you know, is kind of trying to send a signal on. And that's what I would hope that people take away if Trump does win the election. Unfortunately, I don't think that that's necessarily the case. But that's kind of why I say Trump is not, what he says doesn't matter. He's a figure. He is like a lightning rod or whatever for whatever cause that, you know, pisses people off in the way that you want to. I think immigration is the bigger part of that. But it's a big tent for grievance. That explains why Rudy and Tulsi and RFK and all these people can be pro-Trump all at the same time. And the internal contradictions are the point.

I increasingly believe that about MAGA. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and re-examining the culture of

fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal.

It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now.

Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.

This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself. And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor,

going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on to the next part here. Skipping Donald Trump and talking here about the popular vote and also about some Trump efforts to run up the score and possibly set the stage for a stop the steal 2.0. Let's start with Harry Enten about that possibility of Donald Trump winning the popular vote. Let's take a listen. Trump may finally get his great white whale, Harris versus Trump national margin. You mentioned that New York Times poll, a tie. That's actually right in the middle of the

spectrum when we're talking about recent polling data. You don't have to look very far to find Donald Trump ahead nationally. He was up by two points in the CNBC poll, up by three in the Wall Street Journal poll. Very close races within the margin of error. But then the same thing on the other side, right? You have Harris up by three points, according to Ipsos. The Say24 YouGov poll, it's a bunch of academics, also has Harris up by three. But the bottom line is, with the popular vote, which we really haven't focused upon, a very, very tight race, John. Fact is, Donald Trump is very much in a position, he could win the popular vote, which of, is something he would absolutely love to do. And would be something very different than we have seen compared to last time and the

polling compared to last time. Exactly right. So I went back through the time machine, all right? I went back through the time machine to see where were the past two races at this point in the campaign. Look, Harris in the average poll right now is up by one, well within the margin of error. You go back four years ago, Joe Biden was well ahead of Donald Trump

in the national popular vote polls. He was up by nine. Even Hillary Clinton was up by six points. So now Donald Trump's in a position he really hasn't been before at this point in the campaign where he could truly compete. And we can truly say that the popular vote at this point is way too close to call.

Okay, so very clearly it's a possibility. I guess my one quibble though, is that he was using polls and not the actual results from 2016 and 2020. Did you notice that? Right. Because the actual 2016 popular vote was 2.1 for Hillary. Let's see what it was for Biden. I think it was four and a half. Yeah, it was quite high. Yeah, it's interesting. 51.3 to 46.8. And I guess the reason there was massive historical turnout in all states. We actually won more of the popular vote because there were a lot more blue voters in places like New York, California, and elsewhere that came out. But that, yeah, in addition. So it is an interesting point. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that's fascinating here is that between 2016 and 2020, Republicans actually opened up more of an electoral college

advantage. And now based on the 2022 results and based on the polling, you know, as it exists currently going into 2024, it looks like they may actually have less of an electoral college edge than they did even in 2016, which shows you these coalitions aren't exactly static, that they move around. I mean, do I think Trump's going to win the popular vote? Probably not. In both 2016 and 2020, he got around like 47% of the vote. I think it would be a stretch

to see him getting an actual overmajority, but you can't rule anything out. And I will say, if Trump wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college, there's a 3% chance that will be, that will be the end of the electoral college. It will be over for the electoral college. And I just want to say like back when Hillary lost because she won the popular vote and lost the electoral college, I wasn't one of these people going around there bitching. Yes, I want the electoral college to go away, but those were the rules of the game. And she understood them that she played.

And so even if, you know, Trump wins the popular vote and loses the Electoral College, you don't get to cry about the rules of the game as they are set up and established today. But, you know, he's clearly trying to project a lot of confidence. Like I said, I think the New York City rally was an attempt to create this sense of inevitability. He also, we can put this up on the screen, A5, they announced they're going to do a campaign in Salem, Virginia. Now, a poll just came out, a high-quality poll from Washington Post showing, you know, Virginia looks like it's not a swing state. It looks the same as it did last time. I think it was six was the margin. So you know Virginia better than I do. What's the vibe in Salem?

Is it like southern Virginia? I think Salem is southwestern Virginia, I'm pretty sure. So this is, I can look it up, but I'm pretty sure this is like in the mountains in southwestern Virginia. I thought about going and then I saw it was a three-hour drive time. I'm like, that's not going to happen. Yeah, yeah. Let me see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is. It's almost like to the Virginia line over close to Roanoke. So, yeah, this is like, this is rural Appalachian Virginia. I'm sure he has a lot of supporters there. They'll be very excited to see him. Is he going to win for the state of Virginia? This I would be willing to say absolutely not. He's also doing a rally in New Mexico.

Is he going to win New Mexico? Also, there is zero indication he's going to win the state of New Mexico. You even have Vivek Ramaswamy in the New York. Yeah, New York is a swing state. That's what he said at the rally. Incredible. Do people just like being lied to? I don't know, because that is also preposterous, and there is no data to back it up whatsoever. But the plan here is to create this sense of like, oh, we're going on the offense, even in places like New Mexico and Virginia and New York. Can you imagine we're going on? I saw people tweeting, oh, we're going to win New Jersey. Like, no, you are not. But the idea is to create the sense that it's a done deal. The election's over. Trump's going to win,

even though every analysis out there says it's a coin flip. And then if he does lose, you created this sense that it was over and there was no way Democrats could win. And so then your fans are going to be primed and ready to believe that if you don't win, this was stolen. And they'll be ready for whatever conspiracy theory you want to put out there as to why this was unfair, unjust, that you were robbed, et cetera, et cetera. And so I genuinely think that is part of the strategy of going to places like Virginia, New Mexico, New York, et cetera. I think that's definitely part of it.

I was wondering, too, with Salem. I was like, okay, well, what's the big brain case for it? Is it like you said, Appalachia, trying to get some North Carolina folks maybe to drive over? Could be. You know, I was like, okay, I could see that. But you could just go to. Yeah, you could just go to. It's not that close to North Carolina, actually.

I mean, I don't know. I read stories about people at these Trump rallies who drive for 15 hours or whatever, so you never know. In terms of New Mexico, it's funny. Last time around, I remember tracking this. Trump was, they were like, we're going to win New Mexico. New Mexico's in play. Jason Miller, who currently works for the campaign, he kept saying that over and over again.

And the actual result is he lost it by, I think, a bigger margin in 2020 than he did in 2016. So yeah, I don't think that New Mexico is going to happen. I mean, I guess the case is maybe some people drive over from Arizona to New Mexico. But in general, right, the domination is the point. Now, the risk is that, hey, man, you probably should go to Wisconsin because I may have incorrectly been cited, but I saw someone say he hadn't been to Wisconsin or in that area in like three weeks, which is a long time. I mean, that was a huge talking point after 2016.

So there could be a lot of overconfidence in the Trump campaign right now. Yeah, it was four weeks ago. It was a month ago. Four weeks ago. So there you go. It's only been a month. You know, it's been a month since you were in Wisconsin. Now, maybe it's just a sign of, hey, we're going to win Wisconsin.

We're not worried about it. There's some signs in that direction. I mean, you know, we were just talking with Logan, and he thinks Wisconsin is like the smallest or the best state now for him in terms of the polls. But he still has them losing in the average. Right. So it's, I mean, no one could think, like, even if you feel like Wisconsin is moving towards Trump, you certainly can't think like, oh, this is done and dusted and it's, you know, it's a wrap. Now, I do see he's going to hold a rally in Milwaukee a couple days before the election. Okay.

So that's on their radar. Listen, I mean, a lot of these campaign decisions on the Trump side, too, are just about like his ego. Yes. Right. Like he wants to pretend like New Mexico is in play. He probably maybe even believes it. Right. At the rally last night, he said he thinks they're going to win Colorado.

You are not going to win Colorado. But, you know, he may have convinced himself of that. And so part of it is just like playing to his ego as well. And then I also think there's a sense that since politics are so national, does it really matter if you do the rally in Salem, Virginia versus in North Carolina? That was my other case. That it's just like it's all a show and it's a national show. And the particular location, like whether it's in Pennsylvania or in Virginia or whatever,

it doesn't ultimately matter all that much. That's what I was thinking. Because I was, you know, again, the Madison Square Garden thing. At first I thought it was dumb. I'm like, why are you doing it? And then I was like, oh, well, even if you live in like bumfuck wherever, like you know what Madison Square Garden is. And so you see a picture of Madison Square Garden and Trump in a packed arena

where they literally had to turn people away. And you know what it is. Same in terms of, I mean, actually, I remember in Iowa and in New Hampshire last time around, Trump did not spend that much time on the ground in 2016. Ted Cruz and Marco made a lot of talking points about that. But what ended up being correct? The correct strategy was just go on Fox News or go wherever, hold a rally, say whatever you want. People intuit it, watch it, vote for you. I mean, obviously, what has he got, second, I think, in Iowa? But that was a big media strategy where the ground game was shook up entirely by the nationalization of politics. And if you look at this time around, I mean, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley and these people, they spent a ton of time on the ground.

Vivek, didn't he go to all 99 counties in Iowa? Yeah. Didn't matter, right? How much did he get? 5% of the vote? Something like that? Yeah, and Chuck was really the first person to all 99 counties in Iowa? Yeah. Didn't matter, right? How much did he get? 5% of the vote? Something like that? Yeah, and Trump was really the first person to kind of understand that back in 2016. He was the very, it's true.

You know, because he didn't run like a traditional campaign, really. It was very like, more like rock tour. If you think it's ramshackle now, back then it was wild. It was the Trump helicopter and like five guys, one of them used to work for the UFC. That was it. Yeah. And, you know. That was it. Yeah. And, you know, it was enough not to win the popular vote to get the job done. And, you know, the rules of the game as they existed.

So that may be part of it, too, is like the more traditional campaign heads on his team are like, hey, he wants to do this thing for his ego and it doesn't really hurt. So why not go to Virginia if you want to go to Virginia? I think I am. Yeah, I think that that's the correct strategy. Probably. The nationalization matters most. And yeah, like you said, for Stop the Steal 2.0, if that's what you want to set up, you're like, well, you know, the inevitability. I mean, I just feel like at the point this cake is baked, like they're going to say it no matter what. Whether they're going to Salem or whether they're going away, it doesn't matter. I mean, the level of like delusion up here, specifically for a lot of these boomers, like you, there's not a word you could say to these folks

about why the election was not stolen. So he's got it in the bag. And I was, you know, if you go on Twitter, the amount of election, just straight up bullshit that you will consume on a daily basis is unbelievable to me. I think Trump is doing quite well in the race. I think he's got a better than not shot of winning. Do I think he has a 93% chance of winning? No. Who even comes up with this stuff? Yeah. That's where I'm like, okay, I was thinking about this. Republicans seem buoyed psychologically, are buoyed by this sense of inevitability. Democrats are neurotic and they're convinced that they're going to lose.

Now, every big thing I've ever accomplished in my life, even if I ever had a good chance of doing it, I always acted like I was going to lose just to make sure you do everything to make sure that it doesn't happen. So there are just screams of overconfidence to me right now. Absolutely. And bravado and ego. It's just, I don't know. Karma's real. All right. Like it'll check you very quickly. It's a coin flip election. Yeah, that's what I think. It is a coin flip election. And, you know, no one can say which direction the polls might be wrong. Like, we don't know. Maybe they are underestimating Trump. That's very possible. But you don't know that.

So, yeah, I mean, part of it is just they like to pretend. I mean, it's part of, like, the ethos of, like, owning the libs. Part of owning the libs is, like, we're destroying you and we're dominating. We're going to New Mexico. We're going to New York. We're, you know, we're eating your lunch. You're going to be destroyed. You're going to be, as one speaker at MSG said, you're going to be slaughtered on election day. It's part, you know, that's part

of what like fuels this movement is the sense of like, you know, we're destroying you and owning the libs, et cetera. And then from the Trump perspective, this and the, you know, Trump influencers, I do think it's more concerted strategy to lay the groundwork for. But if we do lose, we're going to claim we won anyway. And you are all going to believe it. And they are all going to believe it. And I think there will be much. We're going to talk more tomorrow about some of the specific, like organized efforts that they put in place to lay the groundwork for that challenge if they were, you know, to narrowly lose or to lose at all the election next week. We're going to get more into the specifics of that they were, you know, to narrowly lose or to lose at all the election. Next week, we're going to get more into the specifics of that. But,

you know, when you see like Elon talking about potential voter fraud and Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming that they're switching votes and then this organized effort of all these lawsuits across a bunch of different states that they've already put into place, you had some dude in North Carolina suggesting they should just preemptively hand the electoral college votes over to Trump. Do you see that? Yeah, I did. And he's actually a member of Congress, which is incredible. Unbelievable. So, I mean, yeah, they are laying the groundwork and it will not be hard. It will be much easier this time around to convince all of their people that the election was stolen than it was last time around. And that's part of what's going on here. There you go.

All right. So speaking of that coin flip election, we have Logan Phillips from Race to the White House joining us to talk about exactly where things stand. The latest polls break all of that down for us. And also to answer this question of whether or not pollsters are hurting. Because you see hurting like with the D. I feel like I always, it sounds like hurting. Oh. I mean herding.

They probably are hurting. They're probably also hurting emotionally. But anyway, because they're all getting like the exact same results. So is that likely or are they kind of trying to fudge the numbers a little bit so that they're not too much out over their skis in the event of either a Trump or a Kamala victory? Let's get right to it. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets.

Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early

and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other.

It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room.

You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves. This medal is for the men who went down that day.

It's for the families of those who didn't make it. I'm J.R. Martinez. I'm a U.S. Army veteran myself, and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast. From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant,

and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, guys. Election Day, as you probably know, is literally a week from tomorrow, which I'm having trouble wrapping my head around. But joining us now to break down

where the polls stand as of today is our friend Logan Phillips of Race to the White House and offering exclusive content here at Breaking Points. Great to see you, Logan. Hey, great to be on again. Thanks, guys. Yeah, of course. So we've got a little clip here from Steve Kornacki

over at MSNBC talking about how the polls have trended somewhat towards Trump. Let's take a listen to that. One thing we have noticed in the last couple of days, this is not all of the polls that are out there now, but we have seen a number, four in the last four days that have shown very small, but in the context of this close race, potentially meaningful movement in Trump's direction. I don't wanna overstate it, but at the same time, it's hard to Trump's direction. I don't want to overstate it, but at the same time, it's hard to ignore these four. The CNBC poll came out the other day, has Trump ahead by two. The Wall Street Journal poll, Trump ahead by three. These are national numbers. CNN and the New York Times, a tied race. CNN, a tied race. The significance here

is broader movement. Again, we're seeing in Trump's direction. To put this in some context, here is our current national polling average. Let me call that up on the screen for you right here. Harris continues to lead nationally. I want to stress that. But we've been tracking this every week on the air here. A couple weeks ago, this number was at three for Kamala Harris. Her lead in the poll average now down to 1.2 because of some of the numbers that I just showed you. Of course, the swing states, the battleground states are going to be what decide this election.

And look how close those are. We see 1.2 nationally. Just about all these swing states are even tighter than that. One of those polls that Kornacki references there is the New York Times Siena poll, which, of course, people pay a lot of attention to. You can put this up on the screen. This is, I believe, their final national poll before election day. And it does show the two of these candidates tied, 48%. So what are you seeing in terms of the trends as we head in here to the final stretch? Yeah, the trends are that the race went from razor tight with Harris having a slight edge to razor tight with basically it being even,

maybe the slightest of edge of Harris in the key swing states. So the movement is real fortunately for Harris, and it's unusual to say this for a Democrat's perspective, the election is decided by the Electoral College versus the national vote. And while Trump is gaining in swing states, the gain is a little more subtle, except maybe in Wisconsin where he seems to be getting a little faster. Got it. All right. So if we stick with that and we continue down some of the data points that we have, can we put the next one up on the screen? We saw here, you know, multiple things showing tied.

Now, as you just mentioned, can you lay out why maybe the popular vote will not be as a deciding factor this time around? So what I mean by that is usually the rule of thumb with Republicans is that if the Democrats are losing the popular vote or even polling in the popular vote within one or even two points, and that usually means that there's an electoral college bias to the Republicans. Something we've been trying to prime the audience for is this may be changing because of Republican shifts in deep blue states, places like California and in New York. Should we read into it that way and contextualize it in the swing states, like you said? Yeah. I do think that Harris probably needs to win the popular vote to win. And on average,

she's leading the polls by like one and a half to two points nationally speaking. But the change in how much of an edge you need can change dramatically. And honestly, there have been cycles even in this millennium, 2004, 2012, where Democrats lost the popular vote, they easily could have won the election, especially 2004. So we actually see cycle to cycle. This changes all the time because individual states change all the time. If Texas becomes a proper straight down the middle state, Democrats could easily lose the popular vote and win the electoral college, for example, which is not where we're now. We are yet. Right. So this could be more of a precursor possibly of things to come, this trend? Very possibly. Yeah. What are some of the demographic realignments that have led to that shift in terms of the popular vote, electoral college vote dynamic?

I think that Democrats are doing a bit better in the suburbs now. They certainly did in 2022. And that is helping them a little bit in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. Honestly, every single one of the swing states, right? It's also kind of what's putting Texas in play, too. Plus, Democrats appear to be doing a little better with the white vote relative to how they were doing in 16, and perhaps 20, at least,

relative to where the popular vote is. So that means that their, you know, their alignment of voters might be a little closer to just where the swing states happen to be. It doesn't mean that that inherently would give you an edge. It's just the absolute randomness of which states happen to be the most competitive in American politics at this point in time. Is this a continuation of some of the trends that we saw in the midterms?

Because Republicans, you know, that red wave didn't materialize, but there were a few states where they kind of did, right? Florida and New York in particular, California somewhat to a lesser extent. What are some of the peculiar dynamics in those states, which are not swing states, that have led Republicans to either, you know, gain ground in New York, gain even more ground in the state of Florida? Yeah, I think some of it has to do with local politics. Kathy Hochul is in particular popular in New York. Yeah. And Giacomo was popular until he had all his ethical issues that forced him out of office. And it's, you know, you have a state of one party rule

for a long enough time, it can lead to some inefficiencies in government and people can over time turn against that. So that might be a problem there as well. You know, crime has been a problem in New York. It's gone down, but you know, it's still important to people. And New York, probably due to federal reasons,

hasn't always had the resources it needs as you have a lot of immigrants and asylum seekers who've come to the state who don't yet have the status that they may or may not get depending on the individual to be able to get a job. They have to wait like a year for it. So now the state has to provide for them because of the slow federal policy. And so that's making people more. That's been a big Long Island, Staten Island thing. Let's put the next one up here from CBS. So this was one of the few that had it just 50-49, not just tied. But if you take a look at that Battleground figure, we have it 50-50.

I mean, so when we were talking here, Logan, like even also in your own models and you're looking at those Battlegrounds, how do you suss out like the reality of a 0.3 advantage or a 0.4 or something like that? Because it just seems so within the margin of error that it's difficult to you know Determine even with an average when we're talking about edges that are that small. Yeah, you know sure they have the edge You know, we can look a hundred to pass. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a correlation even though I feel like there's anything But the fundamental nature of this stuff is the assumptions that we make about the electorate They're always gonna be wrong in some way. We just don't know what parts of it are going to be wrong.

Right. So it's just like you have a little more room to be wrong in one direction. If you have a.4 lead, then you're down.4. Totally. Right. Let's put A5 up on the screen. This was a poll that I'm sure the Harris people were very happy to see. This was ABC Ipsos poll of likely voters.

It has Harris up at 51, Trump at 47. Greg Sargent opines here that it's better for her than other national polls, finding a tie because she runs better among Latinos and blacks, including men, than those other polls while holding on to the same percentage of the white vote as Joe Biden, per Ron Brownstein. This is the key. What do you make of this poll? And how real do you think that these shifts that we've seen in other polls among black men, among Hispanic men in particular, given that you do have some polls like this that really don't find any movement at all? Yeah, I mean, Ipsos has generally been more favorable for Harris this cycle. New York Times has generally been more conservative, favorable for Trump.

So that might be what's at play here. I think ultimately the odds are that Trump has gained in these polls. But in 2022, the polls were off by like a point and a half. Maybe the movement at the end was real. It just might have been Democrats outright leading, and then it went to the slight Republican lead at the end. But there's no way to know this for sure because you only have one election. So maybe the polls two weeks ago and the movement was completely made up, which is hard to tell.

Yeah, I know. I mean, I know this can be frustrating. I mean, let's continue to the next one. Nate Silver, he had a very good breakdown of actually each of the individual swing states. I wondered if we could put – we'll put that tear sheet, please, up on the screen. But I was looking at his Wisconsin model. And if we check Wisconsin, what he has in front of there is basically like a 53% chance that Kamala would win Wisconsin. But you were just saying that there has been some overall

movement. You actually see there exactly what you said, our 1.6 advantage in a change from the last month. Is there anything you can look at from his overall analysis and also maybe pair it with the early vote of some signs where things could differently go. Yeah, there's been consistent poll movement in Wisconsin. We thought it might be true for Michigan, but we got a bunch of high quality polls showing Harris still ahead by modestly in Michigan. So I think Wisconsin is one of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that I'm most worried about for Harris. Got it. It's most likely to flip.

Interesting. So for, if you're the Harris campaign, what looks like your best path to 270? And conversely, if you're the Trump campaign, what is your most likely path to 270? Yeah, I still think for Harris, it's the conventional Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Blue wall plus Omaha.

Yes. But North Carolina is so close right now that it easily could be the one that saves Harris. So, like, if she loses Wisconsin, she could win North Carolina and that would be enough for her? And if she wins North Carolina and Nevada, which, you know, I still think she's modestly favored Nevada. So you're still very bullish on Nevada. So let's talk about that. Much less so than I was last week. Okay, much so than last week.

So because for everything I've seen right now, I guess the bull case for Trump is you've got this major Republican turnout, according to Joel Ralston. A huge percentage of the votes have actually already been cast to the overall electorate. that that other demographic is disproportionately younger, people who are most likely to vote Democrat. So the other category being so large could be skewing it, but you're still less bullish. So tell us why. Yeah, because the early vote has not been good for them. Now, some of that's not counting a lot of the mail-in ballot that's going to be coming in. So maybe it's not as bad for them as we think. Okay. The polling has been sort of good for Harris. It generally underrates Dems, so that doesn't necessarily carry cycle to cycle. You mean in Nevada? In Nevada specifically. Okay.

It has up to this point anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the case for Trump's stuff had gotten stronger there. That being said, I mean, if you look at Maryland, for example, I saw this great graphic from Split Ticket this morning. The 2022 election, you know, the breakout of like how Republicans did in early voting relative to 2020 suggested all sorts of good signs for them. No one really thought that Dan Cox was going to be Westmore in that race. That's the governor's race.

Governor's race. My bad. Thanks for saying that. And he ended up winning by like the same margin I think that Joe Biden won Maryland almost exactly, right? Because it's just the makeup of election day was also really different. So this stuff is clues, but the makeup of the electorate can change. How independent and swing voters vote can change as well. Okay. We were reading a little bit yesterday, Crystal and I, at different states and how they vote. So I had no idea, for example, like 90% of Arizona votes early. So maybe if you could

just tell the audience like which states where the early vote maybe matters more and then where also like which states on the same day could be determinative like with Maryland, like you were saying. Yeah, I would say Nevada and Arizona, those are states you're going to see a lot more early voting. It's more important, you important. Especially because Nevada has a lot of culinary workers who are struggling to get Election Day off, so they try to get in early. Right. Makes sense. Yeah. And Georgia has a strong early vote.

But even there, right, this is what it was the last few cycles. It might change. Democrats got the big bank of votes early on. Republicans came in droves at the end. So I think for all of these states, it's still going to be a factor. But it's more that, you know, each state by state, it's just hard to say right now because we don't have a voting pattern long enough post-2020 when more people got into early voting to make success. Yeah. And the other thing that is difficult is every state has different sequencing in terms of,

like, is it just mail-in? Is it just early in person, which tends to be more Republican? And so I think that's part of what's accounting for like if you look at those blue wall states, you go, oh, that looks pretty good for a Democrat. And then you look at Nevada, you're like, oh, that looks terrible for Democrats. Part of it seems to be that different states have different sequencing, different percentages of the vote that are expected to come in early, et cetera. So it can be very difficult, like you said, especially post-2020. We really don't have a model for this election, which is post-COVID, but not during COVID, and what the makeup is likely to look like. Yeah, and I would say the general thing is, right, over the last two weeks, there have been positive signs for Republicans, an incredibly competitive race. But much like perhaps a lot of pundits were over-reading the

good signs for Kamala, the same thing is happening now. And I think it's in part due to past experience of headaches in 2020 and 2016. People don't love to be wrong, but they don't like to be wrong the same way twice or three times in a row. Well, that's a perfect segue into the next conversation we want to have about what has been kind of like an online debate among nerds and data geeks, etc., over whether or not the pollsters are, quote unquote, hurting. This is going to be posted later in the week for everybody to take a look at as we head into Election Day. It's going to be posted today for premium subscribers if you want to become a premium subscriber. And here, Logan, answer this incredibly important and interesting question. Go to BreakingPoints.com so you can get that right away. All right,

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