Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - The Coming Political Crack-Up — with Mike Murphy

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

What have we learned so far about this election cycle, and what does it tell us about what’s likely to happen in the midterm elections of 2022, and the Democratic and GOP primaries for president in 2024? Historically, California has often served as a movie trailer on our national political future -- 'coming to a theater near you.' Richard Nixon started there, turning the Cold War threat into an election theme in his early political campaigns; Ronald Reagan transformed what we now think of as movement conservatism during his two terms as governor; and Proposition 187 was a California state ballot issue in 1994, before immigration became a national political issue (it helped get then-Governor Pete Wilson re-elected on the issue of immigration). Celebrity candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected governor there a year before the first season of The Apprentice. The state’s size and diversity make it a political country within a country: a population of 40 million people, the fifth largest economy in the world, and a whopping 22 million registered voters. Long-time GOP campaign strategist Mike Murphy has been on the front lines – and often the mastermind – of some of these California campaigns, as well as plenty of national campaigns too. He's been thinking about what, if anything, President Biden and the Democrats can do to turn around their near-term electoral headwinds. Mike’s view on the political crack-up is sparked by the breakdown in quality of life for his fellow Californians, and Americans almost everywhere. He also has some analytical insights on everything from the impact of inflation to the future of 'Roe vs Wade'. Mike has worked on 26 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races across the country, including 12 GOP wins in Blue States – something that’s getting harder and harder to do. He was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Murphy is a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He’s co-host of the Hacks on Tap Podcast, and he also pens a political newsletter (The Hacks On Tap Newsletter). Murphy is co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future.

This is one of these things where it's a coin toss, except the tails has four more grams of copper on it. Because right now, Biden's not getting all the habitual Democratic voters behind him on a how's he doing on the economy. So until that's fixed, they're really screwed. What have we learned so far about this election cycle? What does it tell us about what's likely to happen in the midterm elections of 2022 and the Democratic and GOP primaries for president in 2024? Well, historically, California has often previewed our national political future. Richard Nixon started there, turning the communist threat and the Cold War into themes in his early political campaigns. Ronald Reagan redefined conservatism during his two terms as governor.

Proposition 187 was a ballot issue in 1994 before immigration became a national political issue. It helped get then-California Governor Pete Wilson re-elected on the issue of immigration. Celebrity candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected governor there a year before the first season of The Apprentice. The state's size and diversity make it a political country within a country, a population of 40 million people, the fifth largest economy in the world, and a whopping 22 million registered voters, all in one state. Longtime GOP campaign strategist Mike Murphy has been on the front lines and often the mastermind of some of these California campaigns, as well as plenty of national campaigns, too. I want to get Mike's

view on the political crack-up sparked by the breakdown in quality of life and civil order that his fellow Californians are experiencing, as are Americans almost everywhere. And what about the impact of everything from inflation to the future of Roe v. Wade? Mike's worked on 26 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races across the country, including 12 wins in blue states, something that's getting harder and harder to do for Republican strategists. Mike was a top strategist for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who I mentioned earlier. He's a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC. He's co-host of one of my favorite political podcasts, Hacks on Tap, which, if you're not a subscriber already, I highly recommend that you become one. He also pens a political newsletter, Hacks on Tap Newsletter.

And Mike's also a co-director of the University of Southern California's Center for the Political Future. Taking stock of where we are in 2022 and looking ahead to 2024. This is Call Me Back. stock of where we are in 2022 and looking ahead to 2024 this is call me back and i am pleased to welcome back my not my old friend my longtime friend your jurassic friend longtime friend dating back to 1994 the first campaign uh we worked on together the spence abraham campaign uh my longtime friend mike murphy back to the conversation hey mike how are you 1994, the first campaign we worked on together, the Spence Abraham campaign. My longtime friend, Mike Murphy, back to the conversation. Hey, Mike, how are you?

I'm good, Dan. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm trying to make sense of this crazy political moment, this crack-up we're living through, and I figure there's no better person whose brain to pick than yours so i appreciate you're doing it for a number of reasons not the least of which is you you have encyclopedic knowledge both as a student of political history but of a practice as a practitioner of politics but also because you're ground zero of of some of the crack up which is california which oh yeah

the crazy times demand a crazy politics dan that's right's right. I want to talk about what's happening in California and what we're learning from it and what the implications are nationally. But before we zoom in on California, I just want to get a sense from you nationally, because whenever I want to gut check on what's going on, I try to check in with you. It seems to me that everything that could be going wrong for biden the democrats i'm just this is not an ideological point it's not a partisan point it's just a i'm trying to be a analytical in that terms of you know first midterm of a presidential of a presidency for the party in power is going to be under pressure. Obviously, macro environments, inflation, et cetera. I mean, can you just walk us through, like, what are all the reasons, why does it seem that, like, everything that could be going wrong for the Democrats,

and it's not to say that everything's going well for the Republicans, but let's just start with the Democrats. Everything that could be going wrong seems to be going wrong. And what are those things? Yeah, the Republicans are doing well by not doing anything, just not being the Democrats, because the Democrats have been sucked into this perfect storm. You know, if you combine it all, first you have foreign events, which are, you know, maybe you can influence them, have a geopolitical strategy. But when you have a resource region, wheat and oil go to war and cause all kinds of problems there. And then you have COVID re-spark, particularly in Asia, which is a supply chain nightmare. You know, economically, you have that all swirled together. And then you've got a new president elected who ran a

pretty good campaign on, I'm boring and normal, no more crazy. How's that sound? I'm a nice, comfortable old shoe. But the minute after he got elected, decided, no, no, I. How's that sound? I'm a nice, comfortable old shoe. But the minute after he got elected, decided, no, no, I'm going to be FDR. And, you know, we'd already gone very aggressive on the fiscal side with COVID aid. Basically, we're going to fight germs with dollars. And, you know, we've had low, low interest rates to inflate up the economy. So all this stuff starts combining. And then the pain comes and the Biden guys, and I'll say I'm a Trump-hating Republican. I'm a conservative, but I voted for Biden because I can't abide Trump. But I didn't really get what I voted for, and a lot of the country didn't, which was that quiet stability.

Instead, they got more crazy from the left, the issues that wore out the country, you had what we in the political campaign racket call gas and groceries, which is where every voter, most voters, Dan, I know you have people who handle this for you, but most voters twice a week go get kicked in the teeth at the gas pump in the grocery line. I was at the gas pump last night night six plus bucks a gallon I could it's it's unbelievable yeah we're up at seven here in California that's because you know attack gas tax well yeah no we have a massive gas tax right which is why we have no pollution right

but so all this stuff's compounded and then poor Biden has not had the domestic communication toolbox to be able to deal with it. Build Back Better, it sounds to me like a chain of chiropractors. Why they didn't fight a bumper sticker fight on how'd you like childcare and cheaper prescription drugs? The do nothing Republicans are in the way. Something simple you can fight over. Instead, they had the big ideological agenda. It was made to look weak by the lefties in the House, the squad, etc. Small in number, but big in volume. And they just got tied up in their own stuff. The one great thing they did, infrastructure, they never got any credit for because they were on to massive spending,

FDR 2.0, and all this stuff that, of course, broke up on the rocks predictably. So I would say communications incompetence on the domestic policy side by Biden, massive economic shock around the world from multiple causes, from Ukraine, oil, supply chain problems and all that. So now gas and groceries is killing them, killing them. And in politics, if you're getting killed on the fundamental economic reality of the average American family, you're toast. So just on that first year pre-gas and groceries, to your point, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, I think got something like 17 Republican senators to vote for it. It was good. If you think about the rationale for Biden, it was, A, I won't be Trump.

So let's just start with that. I won't be Trump. I'll end the pain. Right. So there won't be the same level of what many people thought was just pure crazy in our politics. I won't be Trump. I'll end the pain. Right. So there won't be the same level of what many people thought was just pure crazy in our politics. I won't be Trump. I'll be boring. I'll be dull.

And I've been around Washington for a long time, so I'll make Washington work again. And it was like he was handed a gift to demonstrate that this is the guy that can make Washington work again because he got this bipartisan infrastructure bill. He got Republicans who normally wouldn't vote for anything led or supported by a democratic president and there they are and it was like almost like he was he was annoyed that that was supposed to be the the big accomplishment it was like it was like it wasn't enough and he just dismissed this big win and then all you saw in the frame was the progressive caucus in the house seeming to run the show so there goes your boring you know boring and not trump image out the window because you got a new cast of characters and they made him look weak and a president can't look weak with so explain what do you mean they made him look well um pelosi who's been a very effective speaker in her career

couldn't control him they couldn't call a vote on the president's signature domestic policy agenda they didn't have the votes in the caucus. They had a classic Democratic open slappy fight about it, you know, with these backbench members saying, no, I don't think I'm going to go with the White House. They haven't met my conditions. And then you had a couple of these poor, horrified moderates who know they're the first to lose in a tough election cycle trying to save themselves. And Biden just kind of watched the thing from afar. They actually rolled him to the hill. President doesn't go to the hill a lot. In a caucus meeting,

he didn't ask for the order and try to close them hard. So the president became kind of a doddering spectator, which has been the beginning of the erosion of the perception of Biden as being large and in charge, which is kryptonite for a president. And, you know, you mentioned FDR, or you could look at LBJ. And if the idea was to model, if Ron Klain and others' genius idea was to model Biden off after LBJ and FDR, you look at the electoral mandates they had, they had massive majorities in Congress. Biden does not have massive majorities in Congress. It was almost like this decision by voters to split tickets. They weren't ready to give Biden this huge mandate. They wanted him to replace Trump, but it's not clear they wanted some kind of progressive movement agenda to take over Washington.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Look at how the House did on Biden's ballot. It's pretty rare in American history where the president's party dramatically underperforms a new president's election in a presidential election. There was actually some breaks on the House because voters were worried about the progressives. And, you know, the Biden folks who are smart folks, I know and like Ron. I think he's a smart guy. But I don't understand going into that environment where it's narrow or they didn't do so well in the House, where an ideological campaign hurt them, and then thinking, all right, on this razor's edge we're on politically, we're going to swing for the fences with a bunch of big lefty stuff that isn't the Biden brand, by the way. Remember, he's the guy who was against single-payer health care. He was the guy in the primaries who was saying, whoa, Bernie, slow down with the big taxes a little bit. It just, the whole thing kind of jumped the rails. And I think Biden, by his nature,

is an LBJ type who is good at the inside game in the Senate. He got the infrastructure thing done. You got to give him kudos there. But he's not a mass communication politician. And then he's got the Republicans. It's not the old era of American politics. Well, let's give the president a few things his first year. Even Reagan had that going for him with the Democrats. You know, our guys now, and I'm still in the party trying to fix it from the inside, but it's thin oxygen. They act like the famous cannibal king. You know, he's always sending telegrams, send me another ambassador for more peace talks. The last one was so delicious. So, you know, our guys don't want to do a deal. They want to either win or destroy.

And that's why the bipartisan infrastructure thing was pretty damn impressive. But we never heard about it because immediately we're off to the new New Deal and trillions of spending. I mean, they were advocating. They didn't get it, thanks to Manchin and others. But in real dollars, they wanted basically to spend World War II all over again on top of all the COVID stuff. And shocker, now vanished from the Washington debate. Maybe it'll make a comeback now. I kind of think it will.

So if you were advising Joe Biden heading in this next year, let's say these next few months, we'll get to after November 2022 in in a minute but just in the next few months advising him uh well let's assume that the house is is going to go republican the senate probably a coin toss we can talk about that now just for our listeners mike would you say general rule of thumb right you look at any congressional district and you can look at the generic ballot the polling democrat versus republican and you look at the president's approval rating, and if the generic ballot favors the Republican in any congressional district, and the presidential approval rating is as low as Joe Biden's, it's likely that could be your determinant about whether or not a Republican is going to win that seat, right? Yeah, and we've declared a bipartisan war on swing seats. There's not as much room to move in the Congress now because all incumbents love the idea of a safe seat.

So now primaries rule the world in some ways more than the general election. But yeah, all the indicators say – and this has historically been true of first-term elections, the first congressional midterm in a new president. It's going to be really bad for Biden. There's going to be a big Republican wave. And that makes life easy for the Republicans because you can nominate a bag of cement in some places and actually win a race you might not have won before. And that's where the Senate kind of gets interesting because of some of the candidates there. But the big problem for Biden is they're losing time. I mean, if I was in the Biden politics world three months ago, I would have said, blow all this shit up, give a fiery speech about the

do-nothing Republicans and start a big war on prescription drugs and extending the child care world three months ago I would have said blow all the shit up give a fiery speech about the do-nothing Republicans to start a big war on prescription drugs and extending the child care benefit that's it that's the bumper sticker us versus them get Biden out there fighting and simplify this for everybody and by the way after 30 days of fighting say damn right I'm running for re-election now you may not run for re-election but right now he dying by a thousand cuts because, you know, we're in this new world where everything's transparent. So every ambitious senator's whispering, oh, I'm getting a lot of calls from New Hampshire. They really want Pendergast. And, you know, it's all over the front page of New York Times with speculation of how dead is Biden? When will he drop out? It's all kryptonite for his narrative,

and he can't have it. But they're burning the biggest resource you've got in a in a campaign or political fight which is time and they they basically run out i mean they can they can try a little summer offense here i'm sure they will it'll be helpful but the house is looking very grim for them and the senate even where they have on the ground advantages in candidate recruitment and things like that is looking scary and and they have a slim majority the democrats so it's right they don they have a slim majority, the Democrats. So they don't have a lot of cushion. So it's six seats or something. So, I mean, it doesn't take much.

Even if not everything goes the Republicans' way, it's still pretty hard for them to screw up winning the majority. Right. It's kind of like, you know, being a tidal wave prevention engineer. Well, with a billion pounds of concrete, we can handle an eight-foot surge. Well, you know, right now there's a 12-foot surge out there. The question is when it gets to shore, how big will it be? So you've been involved one way or the other in almost every election cycle over the last 30, 40 years. Yeah, time to retire. Okay. So I've done enough damage. We worked together in 94. You were doing the Michigan Senate race for Spence. You were doing Angler's reelect.

You were doing the Virginia Senate race, right? That's right. Colonel North. Colonel North. The chair is against the wall. Weren't you doing, I forget. Oh, Terry Branstad out in Iowa. I used to be all the Republican guy.

Tommy Thompson, all kinds of stuff. Right, right, right. So, so one of, and then you did, so 94 was interesting, an interesting comp because it was the first midterm of the Clinton term, and this was very much a rejection of, of Clinton, and then you were involved in the 2010 cycle in a gubernatorial race in California. Also, a similar dynamic nationally in terms of first, first midterm of a new president, President Obama. How does this environment, based on your very direct involvement in those cycles, how does it feel? You know, it's a 94 situation or an 82 if you go from the Democratic point of view.

It is two years in frustration, opposition party having a very easy time of it. They're kind of born on third base. And people are simply out there to punish the president and the president's party. The difference is the battlefield is a little more contained now because we've gotten rid of probably 30 swing congressional seats we used to have. But still, it's bad. And those things are hard. I mean, I'm old enough. The first cycle as a young punk, and I feel a little bit like we're doing the music podcast here,

and I'm like Herman's Hermits going through that first big hit. You know, I hate to age myself like this. But it was 1982. I was in college, but I was an intern at National Conservative PAC, NICPAC, and we were doing independent expenditures. So they kind of pioneered the independent expenditure, and the idea was incumbents are hard to beat, challengers don't have enough money, and they have to define themselves. So an out-of-state group would come in and say, hey, here are three things about Congressman Dan Senor you didn't know. Terrible junket, voted to raise his own pay, bad dancer, you know, whatever the three things are. So the independent television tries to slow the incumbent down to give the challenger, normally gets squashed, some time to grow and breathe.

So that was kind of invented by Terry Dolan. But it was the 82 cycle where Reagan was new. Remember, 1980 was a huge wrong track election. People were pissed at politics. They hated Carter. You always know you've got a really mad electorate when a third party pops up. Screw them all. And in that case, it was kind of a wine and cheese thing with John Anderson, the former liberal Republican congressman from Illinois. Later, we would have a populist third party instead of a wine and cheese, you know, kind of French vanilla Republican and Russ Perot. Right. And another huge

wrong track presidential year. So anyway, they came out of 80 mad and the economic pain was still there. So they took a bunch of it out on the Republicans. And I was around for that. And this feels like that, you know, a very simple election, which is enough of that guy and a lot of callbacks. Boy, you know, it was better before. I'm not getting the relief I thought I voted for, et cetera, et cetera. Now, what you will see in the Obama guys will tell this story from their bad midterms or a million cases of it. In American history, there's many situations where presidents gotten clocked in the midterm of the first term and then had a big comeback. So that's what I want to talk about. Okay. So, so, so Clinton had a horrendous, you know, Republic Republicans win the majority for the first time in decades. It's a huge

win, super majority. And then Clinton uses them as a cudgel, like he triangulates Congress and gets reelected overwhelmingly in 96. Obviously, 2010, Obama loses the midterms. You know, he takes responsibility. He owns it. And then he bounces back and beats Romney in 2012. So if that is a pattern that's common, and I guess you would say the same was with Reagan and the Democrats, right, in 82 to 84, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and you can – I mean, I'm generally suspicious of the, you know, if Napoleon had nuclear subs or the unstoppable wave of history. But these patterns do exist. They tend to oscillate.

The question is, is the modern era different? So you can argue for that scenario. Okay, so Biden's going to get clobbered, but then we're going to come out of recession. The Republicans are going to nominate Trump, who's going to run the whole campaign. And I have a list of people who helped steal the election. I'm going to hunt them down one by one. I'm totally crazy now. We're going to have a bumpy time in world affairs, both the South China Sea, Ukraine. So the stakes of the presidency are going to rise a bumpy time in world affairs, both the South China Sea, Ukraine. So the stakes of the presidency are going to rise.

And Trump is now more controversial than ever before. And with enough economic tailwinds, Biden could have the big comeback. It's happened many times before. The other scenario is in seven of the last eight elections, the party in power has been punished. So we don't oscillate anymore. We just get out the hammer and smash who's ever in front of us. We're now the Hulk smash electorate. So Republicans get clobbered in 2018 in the midterms, and then Trump, rather than bounce back, loses the midterms. I mean, loses the president. Yeah, because Biden gets clobbered too. He gets the primary, or he more likely resigns and there's a fresh young Democrat versus insane Trump

Another scenario and this is one I actually you know, who knows the future is very uncertain, but there are early signs I think that Trump in the last year by his own crazy behavior and Trump fatigue and also even the stuff coming out in the hearings now as We used to say in body shops in my home town of Detroit after an accident, you know, the car looks okay, but you got your frame bent. It will never drive the same. And I think Trump got his frame bent. And I think there's a lot of talk in the Republican world of what do we do about the Donald because Biden's screwing up so bad. We're teed up to win.

Trump's old and crazy. If Biden runs again, he'll be old. We'll say he's crazy. What about a fresh, young, pretty populist at the base could live with who's smart from a big swing state? Maybe even somebody with a couple extra vowels in his name to show we're not a bunch of racists. Who could that be? Well, there's a guy thinking like that, you know, the Harvard graduate down in Tallahassee. You know, so those wheels could turn. And then the GOP gets a generational race if Biden runs again, which is a good thing to have, especially if a big state governor can say, I'm not part of this Washington mess.

The governor versus Washington thing has worked a lot in political history. So there are a lot of different permutations here. And why is the generational race typically one to bet on? The generational race, you know, doesn't always work. But generally, the older, slower bear doesn't do well in the comparison. Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, Jack Kennedy. You know, when you get and Bill Clinton, Jack Kennedy. When you get a young candidate with some spark-

Obama. Yeah, Obama, right. That's another great example. It can work. Now it doesn't always work. Somebody's yelling at their podcasting device right now, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, which is true. But let me put it this way.

I have never, whenever you have a wrong track, angry electorate and flawed candidates everywhere, that is a recipe for surprise, not conventional wisdom being true. And as you guys mentioned on Hacks on Tap, you know, if Biden runs for a second term, by the end of his second term, he'll be closer to 90 years old than 80.

Yeah, which is why with the affection as a human I have for Joe Biden, I don't think in our modern politics, everything's transparent, everything's all over the social media and the broadsheet newspapers now are all electronic and are chasing the story of the minute. I don't think a president can survive a midterm wipeout with the specter of Trump and the scary going to take over the Republican Constitution, hitting Republicans like they could in the old days. So I think the party is going to eat Biden if he gets wiped out in the midterms.

Yeah. And force him out. You know, if you think about it, if you look at who our presidents in the 90s and the early aughts, you look at, you know, you look at Bill Clinton or even look at his vice president Al Gore and you look at George W. Bush in the early, you know, 2000, 2008, all those presidents and vice president who were president and vice president, you know, 20, 20, 30 years ago are still younger today than Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Oh yeah. No, no. It is crazy. And I have a lot of Democratic friends who say, no, no, the party will.

You know, if you look at LBJ and the Vietnam War, which broke him politically and he didn't run again, for Democrats who see the threat to our institutions, and I see it too, it terrifies me, this kind of new little fascist whiff we have, what was clearly an attempt to steal the election, the Trump craziness, Trump coming back, that is the Vietnam War right now in politics on the Democratic side. And if they think Biden's a slow pony, I think they're going to try to get him. The problem is they may replace him with somebody more ideological, more pure identity politics driven, and they may blow it that way, which they're totally capable of doing. Now, I

should say there is a scenario for a Biden comeback on all this. So Biden loses the midterms and the parties chirping at him. But the Republicans, because they're having an auction, maybe Trump turns on Kevin McCarthy, started to rumble at him a little bit. You know, Kevin is the most fun guy in politics to torture. Trump clearly enjoys doing that. But there becomes an auction to appease Trump's grievances there. And all of a sudden, the Republican is talking about impeaching Biden again. You know, he ate with too many salad forks. His son, you know, drove through a red light or whatever, you know, some kabuki theater.

Then there might be a snapback in the democratic party stand by our guy big battle particularly if there's some green shoots of economic progress that would do so much for biden now who knows but there is a scenario where rally the wagons and fight uh so house races tend to be shaped more by the national macro environment you get a big wave it for the reasons we were just describing earlier the Senate is different in that candidate quality the individual races can matter a lot more you've run a lot of Senate races so you could get a situation where the Republicans win the house overwhelmingly but don't don't win back the Senate and they they only need to

net a seat to win the Senate so it should seem very manageable I just want to go quickly through the map so in order for the Republicans to win the Senate. So it should seem very manageable. I just want to go quickly through the map. So in order for the Republicans to win the Senate, they have to defend Florida. Rubio should be fine. They have to defend Wisconsin. Ron Johnson seems to be doing okay. And it sounds like you pull out today.

He he's in a race. He wins that primary. Some of the Dems in August 9th are pretty formidable. Others are going to be easier for Johnson to run against. And Johnson's got this problem where, hey, somebody dropped off a lost shoe at the front desk, and I told the interns to call JCPenney, and they didn't want it. No, not quite. He's not going to slip that news quite so easily.

So that one is still a pretty tough race. But you're right. He'll be helped by the inflation, gas, and grocery tail. And if the Democrats nominate a hyper-progressive, then you're in much better shape. Okay. So then the Republicans have to defend North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. North Carolina sounds like they'll be fine. What do you – Ohio, probably fine.

Probably fine. Jayne Vance is an exact transition from a Republican primary mindset to a general election mindset. Yeah, I mean, all these places. And, you know, I know J.D. Vance. We used to have a couple of great calls about the Trump problem and how to run for Senate against a Trump party. And then he had that terrible head injury or whatever the hell happened there. So I'm hoping he loses, frankly. And I'm not excited about a liberal Senate.

But he right now is on the glide path to win. All these races where we have a flawed-ish candidate and they have somebody on paper like Tim Ryan, the Democratic kind of congressman from a metal-bending district who's culturally pretty good at Ohio politics. The gas and groceries thing throws an extra two points, four points behind them. And that covers a lot of small candidate flaws. But you're right. You at least have something to work with in a Senate race where you can hopefully make it about advance. I mean, the great example now is Pennsylvania, which could be the most interesting race. On one hand, Fetterman is a Bernie Democrat who ought to be easy for

the usual Republican playbook to beat. On the other hand, he's showing a certain un-cola anti-politics appeal, and Oz is stumbling out of the gate after a very tough primary against a candidate I think would have been more electable than the general. So that's another one where maybe candidate will make the difference. And then some of these other races, Nevada, New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia, you know, it looks like Laxell will be OK. Republicans will pick up Nevada, New Hampshire. Who knows? Arizona looks less likely, but who knows? And Georgia also candidate quality. Who knows with Hershel Walker? Yeah, no, I think on paper he is doing fine, but I think he is kind of a movie set.

You know, what looks like steel might be painted styrofoam may fold in the end. I think Nevada is most likely Democratic candidate to lose. There is a working class Hispanic move toward the populist GOP, which the Democrats are in a bit of denial about. I don't know. It's pretty obvious. We're seeing it a lot. What's happening is the Democrat – and they made this mistake against Trump in Florida. They think the Latino vote is all about identity politics, which is totally wrong.

That's one of the ways they blue-date county. So I think Nevada will be another hard lesson for them. So yeah, this is one of these things where it's a coin toss, except the tails has four more grams of copper on it, which is all this economic anti-Biden stuff, which is why the number one thing for all these races, even with the factor that they have local candidate flaws and all the stuff we're talking about, Biden's got to go find seven or eight points of favorable on economic job approval. Ten or twelve would be better, you know, soon. Because right now, Biden's not getting all the habitual Democratic voters behind him on a how's he doing on the economy.

So until that's fixed fixed they're really screwed now in a wave election a real wave that the wave of cycles you've worked on you also can get these surprises like races that nobody's paying attention and suddenly they just yeah i mean 80 had a lot of senate folks elected who nobody thought would win okay so the one i've been looking at here is Tiffany Smiley, who's a very impressive woman running against Patty Murray in Washington state. Patty Murray, longtime incumbent, I think probably thought she had a sleepy path to reelection. And this Tiffany Smiley, there's a profile written over in The New York Times, which is worth reading. Very impressive bio, her story, her husband's story um and she's she's using the the breakdown in in order the civil civil society disorder total breakdown in in seattle which she argues is now spreading to

the suburbs and um and she's she's a a wife and a mom who's who's not going to take it anymore and is and is running and there's this article by nelly bowles in the new york times um in the middle soon after the uh the um the post george floyd riots and was describing she describes what was going on in seattle and in the new york and in the times article and i'm quoting from nelly bowles's piece here when the occupation in seattle started in early june this is early june 2020 mayor jenny Durkin seemed almost amused. She was amused at the fact that Seattle was up in flames and they were abolishing the police and coming up with their own cordon off areas for downtown Seattle that were going to be self-governed

by Antifa. And Mayor Durkin says to Nellie Bowles, we could have the summer of love that this crazy meltdown in Seattle was something to celebrate, something to admire. And Smiley's kind of running on this. And that, to me, is like the kind of sleeper race in this environment. And I think you're in the land of sleeper races. You're in California, where you're in the land of sleeper races you're in california so where you're seeing all sorts of surprises so i know you're you've been following the la race la mayor's race closely you've been following what's happening in san francisco with the chase budin recall in the da da's office just you're there you're falling close you've been involved with california politics a long time Are these quality of life issues really trumping ideology?

Oh, I think they're incredibly powerful. I do. We're in a moment. I mean, San Francisco is as liberal as people say. I mean, the board of commissioners there, Bernie Sanders, would be like, Lordy, these people are something else. You'd be shocked. So look what happened. The overwhelmingly Democratic progressive city couldn't fire their DA, who's one of these super progressive DAs who think we ought to kind of get out of the hole, go into jail business and do more holistic curing, threw him out of office on a rocket ship.

I mean, it wasn't subtle. And there's a recall here against George Gascon, who's the L.A. super progressive D.A., who doesn't really believe we ought to bum out people with, you know, sentences for criminal misdemeanors and even some other stuff. So the quality of life stuff, we saw it in the New York race, too. I mean, the New York City mayoral primary is one of the biggest progressive electorates in the country, probably the biggest. And it was pretty clear the top two candidates, including the winner, Eric Adams, were not running. I mean the sheriff here in L.A. County, and you got to – don't confuse L.A. County and L.A. City. L.A. County is 10 million people to don't confuse LA County, LA City. LA County is 10 million people. LA City is significantly smaller. So LA City doesn't include like

capitalists from Beverly Hills. Right. It doesn't. You know, with people, when I say, hey, LA mayor's race, they figure, oh, it's probably movie stars driving around in Bentleys with yard signs and everything. Yeah, there's some of that, but it's a little different. Anyway, I mean, we have had Snoop Dogg and Kardashian endorsements and stuff. But it's – there is no doubt that the normal formulation in this mayor's race here where we just had the primary. It's not partisan, but we had the primary and now you got two candidates going, the kind of two who are expected into the general election, is a classic battle, wrestling match between, come on, do what you normally do as a democratic city. I mean the city of LA, Bernie beat Biden here. So this is not a right-wing place.

Republican numbers in the city are probably about 11%, 12% best case. And after these hearings, my guess is they're down to nine for a while because nobody will admit it on a poll. So you've got Rick Caruso, a friend of mine, disclosure, I'm for Rick, who is a very successful mall developer. He's kind of his own lifestyle brand. He's quite an impressive guy. And he's been in, I mean, people are trying to paint him as a Republican

that just flipped a Democrat for opportunistic reasons, but he's been involved in I mean people are trying to paint him as a Republican that just flipped to Democrat for opportunistic reasons. But he's been involved in Democratic politics before, right? No, no. So the deal is Rick was a get-it-done business guy. Started out working for Tom Bradley, who was mayor. Then he was successful with Bratton running the police commission. Done a lot. Developer, huge charity guy all over, charter schools, Catholic stuff, et cetera, et cetera.

He was a Republican, gave money to Republicans, which they, etc., etc. He was a Republican, you know, gave money to Republicans, which they're attacking him for. In 2010, he supported Jerry Brown for governor. In 2011, he left the Republican Party to become an independent. He was anti-Trump. Then when Trump came around in 16, he got behind Kasich as a way to beat Trump, and he briefly re-registered Republican because he didn't want to embarrass Kasich because he had a leadership job in the campaign. And then he popped right back to independent. Recently, he went all the way to Democrat. But he's kind of been a functional Democrat for a pretty long time here.

He's given both parties, given to most of his opponents. And he's running as the guy, you know, the sheriff here is a funny line. The sheriff's in trouble, too. He's kind of a uh i think he might win on the same issues we're talking about but he's been controversial but what he says is you know everybody in la is a liberal to a homeless guy shits on your lawn and pulls a knife on your kid and you know the caruso is running on a very tough love which is kind of two strikes and then the cops are going to clear you because Because we're under a complicated situation I won't bore everybody with.

But fundamentally, if the homeless want to put a tent on your front lawn, they're pretty much allowed to do it around the sidewalk, right in front of your house. And we have about 40% of the homeless population of the country here in California now. And so you walk through. I mean, look, I've got a young daughter. We deal with it driving around.

She's getting flashed all the time. My naked homeless guy's at bus stations. You know, we just learned. Syringes on some sidewalks, people. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're having a comeback of middle-aged diseases. And so there's fury. And the cops are all not getting out of their cars and afraid. The L.A. Unified School District cops were banned last year by the school board from being able to walk post on school campuses.

They have to be called in. I mean, so we're in some crazy stuff here. So that has given huge fuel to Caruso's campaign. And he's writing checks like crazy. He's spending a lot of money. The media is up in arms about that. Karen Bass, who you might remember from the president's short list, is a longtime Democratic activist, powerful member of the assembly, was speaker. And I will say as a Democrat, a fairly effective speaker.

I worked with her back in the Arnold days. She was a compromiser. But she comes out of the progressive side. Then she went to Congress. But by the way, Paul Ryan, when he he was speaker says that Karen Bass he found her very easy and responsible to work with she's a grown-up no practical yeah and so she's running as kind of the the Democrat and she has that long history kind of getting you know stuff at least in Congress in Sacramento done the

criticism is you've been here 20 years what have you done the city's a mess mess, and you're part of the club. You're never going to tell anybody you're fired. Well, Caruso's like, I'm going to declare an emergency. So Caruso's Action Jackson. She is, we're a city that gets along. We're comfortable. We have a lot of problems we need to address, thoughtful. But election night, Caruso, having spent 30-some million dollars, had the early lead. But we vote by mail here, so sure enough, two weeks later when they're done counting the votes, Caruso's gone from six points up to seven points behind. So the conventional wisdom is now pass, pass, pass.

The truth is it's going to be a competitive race. It's going to be the quality of life change candidate Caruso versus the comfortable Democrat. You can't have a guy like Caruso who gave money to a pro-life politician in 1998 be mayor of this progressive city. Some class warfare. He's a rich guy, so he's evil. I think Caruso's the underdog, but I think he's got the stronger message, and we're at a moment where candidacies like that can work. And just the fact, even if he he loses just the fact that he's in the runoff that he's alive yeah that tells you about as much as anything but what's going on both in california and nationally the guy like that right and the other footnote is which part of

the perfect storm normally la mayor's races are in the off year so nobody votes and the unions can kind of pick a candidate this time is going to be to be in November in the general election with a much higher turnout probably than is likely for an L.A. mayor's race, which means more casual voters may be pulled in by being furious about the horrible quality of life in the city. On the other hand, the best people will argue that more casual Democrats of California will be brought in. And in the end, you know, this California will be brought in and in the end you know if this single Rick will be defeated this will come down to the people believe Karen's line about Rick which is he's a rich Republican billionaire pro-life zealot or will they believe Rick's line about Karen which is

she is more the same the city will stay bad and get worse if you want change you can't vote for her. Who's closer to the caricature? And I think Rick has an advantage there, but the last three or four points for Rick are going to be tough because it is such a democratic, progressive city. But it's a city that's fed up too. It's a fair fight. So before we let you go, two more questions. So if the national environment, which is also shaping these races locally, the gas, groceries, quality of life issues, when I ask my Democratic friends, Democratic operatives,

so what issue shakes things up for you? What issue energizes your base? And they point to the Dobbs decision. They point to the Supreme Court overturning Roe versus Wade or some version of overturning Roe versus Wade, whether it was the exact Alito draft or some derivative of that. You're a little more skeptical that the debate over Roe is a clear winner for the Democrats, given where they are heading into November. Well, I think it's just the politics of it. I think it will be a useful tool for them. It'll give them something they don't have now. What it brings them, one, a ton of money,

but they already have a ton of money, but... Meaning grass, you know, all these activists, Democratic activists suddenly feel everything's at stake. Yeah, massive internet fundraising. They will have a huge activist energy at all levels, not just a federal fight. It'll get into local state stuff. You know, a lot of Republican officeholders like the pro-life issue. They don't want the pro-life issue to become reality and shake the deck up a little.

So suburban Republicans will be very nervous. The most pro-choice voter group is young men, men 18 to 34, and they tend not to show up in the off year. So hold on, that's interesting. So in your experience, democratic men under 40 are More reliably pro-choice then yeah, you can women under absolutely. I mean the one invisible Person in America who are at least one out of five beating hearts in this country or pro-life women

Try to find one on network TV or anywhere, you know, they don't exist but in pop in pop culture, cable news, they're not there. But they're out there in voter world, and young men tend to be very pro-choice. So the question is, the big Democratic problem that they always have big trouble solving, they normally can't solve it, is getting younger voters to vote in the off year, particularly younger men. Well, here's a reason maybe. So that helps them. So I see a lot of, you know, pluses, suburban districts, changes of subject for a month because the media will be massively obsessed about it, as will a lot of voters, so fair enough. Is it enough to overcome gas and groceries? If Biden can get his economic perceptions back and we

have come back and we're in a different kind of economic range on October 1 and this is going on, it could tilt some Senate races. That's where it could make a difference, in Pennsylvania. So it gives the Democrats a big tool to work with they haven't had before. But is it as big as gas and groceries across the whole country? Because there are also pro-life places in the upper Midwest and other where there are enthusiastic pro-life voters. So it's not quite the Manhattan home run it feels like on cable news. But net-net, it is good politics for the Democrats if it happened. I just don't think it's as big as gas and guns.

Well, guns are another issue where the suburbs could turn. But now they've actually done something, so some of that anger is probably diminishing. Bottom line, it's good for the Dems, but I don't think it's a solve-all by any means. Before we let you go, so I was full disclosure involved in the Pennsylvania Senate race,

and I watched a lot of these races take shape in Pennsylvania. I was for McCormick in the primary, but i obviously had an eye on some of these other races i said and i was struck watching the gubernatorial race where you had this you know unapologetic trump supporter doug mastriano you know you you can read what he said about january 6th i don't need to quote him uh and and his general support for... Yeah, batshit crazy, basically. And then I watched the numbers and saw the Democrats

were spending more money in the Republican primary to help Doug Mastriano win the primary than they were spending... than like Shapiro, who's the Democrat AG, won the Democratic nomination for governor, than he was spending on his own race. So they were working hard to get Mastriano thinking, as I remind my Democratic friends,

much like many of them thought in 2016, oh, it'd be great if Trump wins the nomination. If Trump wins the nomination, then Hillary's got this in the bag. And I'm seeing this now in different parts of the country where Democrats are supporting, you know, at a time we're all watching these january 6 hearings and there's all this concern in many cases very with good reason about the future of our democrat our future of our small d democratic institutions and then you have and i'm not making this is not moral equivalence but it's just important to put a spotlight on it seems like they're playing with fire a little bit by trying to elect they're trying to

help nominate republicans who they think will be the least electable but in an environment like this it's not clear that some of them won't win yeah no no no it's very dangerous stuff it's like some russian general right now is pitching putin one small nuke and the west will back down and make peace immediately on your terms all you got to do is blow up two villages. It's an old tactic. It's been done a lot where you spend money from your campaign in the other person's primary with an ad of, boy, he loves Trump too much. He's too tough on the border.

He's too tough on auditing the election. And help that clown win. And then, ha-ha, we got him beat. But when you got a kook like Mastriano who would want to subvert the Electoral College and his governor Pennsylvania would have some power and he got a wave election where boxes cement might win you know is Josh should look in the mirror and say really am I so important that I got to try to rig my general election where I ought to be able to win on my own by playing with anthrax canisters and nerve gas here.

Really. Right. Josh Shapiro is that important to the world that he's going to want to do. And he did. And it's going on in Illinois too, but not at the Mastriano, not at the crazy-ass Republican potential governor level. And so, yeah, and I've been making noise about this. It's been done.

But now, latest poll, four points on this margin of error. Now, I think Shapiro will— If our listeners are new, USA Today poll just came out, and Shapiro's only beating Mastriano by four points. It's a little too close for comfort in an environment like this. Right. Again, you know, where it's, hey, that new experimental plane with the nuclear bomb, let's fly it around Manhattan between skyscrapers because it'll be fun and I'll make Lieutenant Colonel. Okay, Josh, thank you.

Right. So the New York Times just June 16th, just a few days ago, had a piece out by Jonathan Weissman. It says, as Democratic leaders warn loudly of right-wing threats to democracy, their campaign arms are meddling in Republican primaries, betting they can help pick easier opponents in November. The title of the piece is Democrats' Risky Bet, a GOP extremist in spring hoping to beat them in the fall. Yeah, playing with fire. Now, that said, vote for Josh Shapiro. It is always great to join you here on America's second-best podcast

after Hacks on Tap with Murphy and Axelrod. It's more of like a niche play, but we like giving you... You do the vast canvas of world affairs, security issues, small engine repair, dating advice. You cover the whole waterfront here. All right, Mike. Thanks for being with us. We'll get you back. Thank you, pal.

Have a great day. See you. All right. See you. All right, see you. That's our show for today. To keep up with Mike Murphy, you can follow him on Twitter, at MurphyMike. And also, as I mentioned earlier, subscribe to the Hacks on Tap podcast and to the Hacks on Tap newsletter.

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