Front Burner - A viewer's guide to U.S. election night

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

It’s been an incredibly tight race between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump ahead of today's U.S. election. The winner is expected to be decided by razor-thin margins in seven battleground states: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona.From understanding the path to victory, to the value of the blue wall states, to the final stretch of the campaigns, CBC Washington correspondent Paul Hunter guides us through what to consider while watching the U.S election results come in.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. I shouldn't have left. Hey, everybody, it's Jamie. I'm in studio with my colleague Paul Hunter, CBC senior Washington correspondent.

We are recording this on Monday, just a day before the U.S. election. Paul, hi, how's it going? How you feeling? Hey, Jamie, good to see you in person, by the way. This is a first. It's so great. It's so nice to have you right in front of me. Paul is here today to help us get ready to watch all the results coming in tonight. Think of this as a primer for parsing out all of the election coverage. All right. So, Paul, before we get to how to watch the election, I just want to get your thoughts on the last couple days of campaigning, the final stretch. Let's start with the Harris campaign.

What do you think is worth us talking about here? Well, what I thought was interesting was how her message has changed back to positivity and forwardness. What kind of America do you want has been the question from her. And we have the momentum because our campaign is tapping into the ambitions, the aspirations and the dreams of the American people. the aspirations, and the dreams of the American people. Because we are optimistic and excited about what we can do together. It's been a real kind of messaging roller coaster from the Harris campaign, I think. It started out all rainbows and unicorns after she sort of ascended to being the nominee.

Coconuts. Exactly. All that kind of stuff. The memes and things like that. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? And then it got dark in terms of attacking Trump, an unserious candidate, a fascist. It is clear from John Kelly's words that Donald Trump is someone who I quote, certainly falls into the general definition of fascist. Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable. And in a second term, it was almost like there was a realization that, well, people have their opinions of Trump kind of cast in stone at this point. So

you're not going to change anything with that. So she's gone back to where it began, which is let's turn the page, let's move forward. We have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms. It is time to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division. It is time for a new generation of leadership in America. So that messaging combined with where she has been, she spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania,

obviously, you know, the seven swing states, the battleground states, uniquely, effectively speaking, for her and for Trump. But a lot of time in Pennsylvania, as if to underline the recognition that that is the place where this is going to turn. And what about the Trump campaign? struck me about Trump in the last few days was that he looks old and is sounding old. You know, the kinds of things that, you know, big media railed on about Joe Biden.

But now he, you know, when it became Harris-Trump, everybody commented that now Trump's the old candidate. And then we, you know, people kind of moved on from that because the news cycle, because it doesn't last long these days. But the last few days, he has looked tired, looked old. I don't even sleep. I've gone through 62 days without a day off every single day. Which I found interesting. But beyond that, it's resorting to attack, attack, attack, attack. If this goes to Harris, it's the apocalypse, right? Nothing will ever be the same again. Darkness, darkness, darkness. Scary, scary, scary to the max.

This election is a choice between whether we will have four more years of gross incompetence and failure or whether we'll begin the four greatest years in the history of our country. They're going to be the four greatest. We start from a very bad place. We're a nation in decline. We're a nation in decline like we've never seen a decline. What they've done to our beautiful country is just so horrible. And again, focusing on the states that matter. Of the states for him, it was interesting to see him go to North Carolina.

That has been a dream of Democrats for some time now. The fact that Trump has been there the last couple of days suggests to me that Republicans are a bit nervous about what's going on in North Carolina. We'll see. Okay, so let's talk about some of those key states now and discuss what we can expect on election night. So you have a map that you actually drew out. Here it is. It looks great.

And just describe it to me. Yeah, I look at a lot of maps in this gig these days. So what I wanted to draw was something that really just isolated the states that matter. These are the seven battleground states. As I look at this, and I'll go counterclockwise on the map of the USA, and indeed, it's a pretty good rendition, I'm going to say. Honestly, I'm impressed. Thank you. Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.

And then I put in red numbers in the middle of each of those states, the number of electoral college votes that each one is worth, because that makes it easier to figure out what needs to be done by either candidate on election night. So I'm going to make your head spin a little bit here with some numbers. If you figure that all the rest of the states are going to go the way they are predicted and the way that they historically have gone, let's, let's throw those out the window because these seven are the only ones in play. Right. California goes blue.

Gone. Florida goes red. Texas, red, New York, blue. Exactly. So Democrats need 44 electoral college votes after you add up all the others. Republicans need 51. So as I look at this map, here's the, here's the math part, Jamie. Wisconsin, 10 electoral college votes, 15 in Michigan, 19 in Pennsylvania. You know what that adds up to? 44. If Harris wins

those three, it's lights out. Is that the blue wall? That's the blue wall that matters in this election. The blue wall, technically, it includes a few more states. They say blue wall because these are states that historically almost always go Democrat. So the blue wall states in play are those three. So for the 2024, let's call that the blue wall. If she holds the blue wall, those three states, it's game over. As I look down the eastern seaboard, I see, I'm going to include Pennsylvania here, North Carolina, and Georgia. 19 in Pennsylvania, 16 in North Carolina, 16 in Georgia.

You add those up, 51. If Trump wins Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, it's lights out for Harris and Trump wins. It's the same method with the one commonality there, Jamie, Pennsylvania. It all comes down to Pennsylvania. And we've talked about this on the show before. A lot of people think that whoever wins Pennsylvania is going to win this election. That's a yes. Probably, I say with an asterisk. Right. There are other paths, right? But it gets complicated. There could be surprises.

Talking about surprises, on your map, you've got all the seven swing states, right? But you also have Iowa it. And who would have thought I would write Iowa on a map about wondering what's going to happen in this election? Well, because on the weekend, what's known as the Seltzer poll from Ann Seltzer in Iowa, one of the most highly regarded pollsters in the United States, mythical status because she slash they gets it right. Saturday comes out with a poll in Republican, she slash they gets it right.

Saturday comes out with a poll in Republican Iowa that shows Kamala Harris leaping ahead. And I say leaping by, I think, three points. Wow, this has thrown the political world for a loop because neither party, go back here, neither party has been treating Iowa as a battleground at the presidential level. Remember, Donald Trump did incredibly well here in 16 and 21 by more than eight points. This would be if this actually happened, Harris ahead by three over Trump in Iowa. That would be an 11 point

shift for Harris in Iowa. What is the producer sent that to me on Saturday night, my hotel, and I literally the phone fell from my hand. It's like, you've got to be kidding. So what does that mean? Right. Iowa has six electoral college votes that unto itself. It's no small deal, but it's not, it's not necessarily going to turn it for Kamala Harris. If, if this is true, but what it could signal and what a lot of people wonder if it signals is like, try to imagine a school of fish in the ocean, right?

Swimming along and all of us, you know, you know how schools of the ocean, right? Swimming along and all of us, you know, you know how schools of fish work, right? One moves, they all move. And all of a sudden, boom, they all turn left. A late break. Exactly. Is that what this means? Does what's happening, if it's accurate, does what's happening in Iowa mean that's happening throughout the Midwest that let's say women, for example, have decided that, well, actually, reproductive rights matter. This is my chance to say yes to that. And if I don't, so maybe if I'm a Republican, I'm just going to hold my nose and say, no, no, this matters more than that. And the poll would suggest that a lot of people are doing that. You look at where Harris is drawing her support

from in this Des Moines Register poll. Among women, 20 point advantage over Trump. This is particularly strong for her independent women and senior women. Trump obviously doing better with men. But one thing to keep in mind in Iowa, abortion has been front and center there with that new six week ban that went into effect this summer. That gender gap. If it's, you know, one of the things you learn in this game is to not put too much emphasis on any one poll.

But this comes back to the fact that this is the Seltzer poll and it's late in the game here. You know, the election is effectively now. So that was a big one. Yeah. People are saying possible that it's wrong. It's also possible that what's happening in Iowa is just happening in Iowa, I guess, too.

Indeed. I got a poll. I'm 10 points happening in Iowa is just happening in Iowa, I guess, too. Indeed. I got a poll. I'm 10 points up in Iowa. One of my enemies just puts out a poll. I'm three down. Why do they announce a poll that's highly skewed toward Democrats and liberals? Why do they do that? In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. and industry connections. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. You know, we're talking about how mathematically it could work here, what states Trump would need to grab or Harris would need to grab to kind of get to that 270 number. I know that we won't know the patterns of how people will have voted night of, but just take me through who the campaigns have gone after here, what groups they think that they need to win. You already talked about women. Obviously, the Democrats have been courting them very hard. Just take me through a couple of

the other big demographic groups. Well, it's going to sound like I'm being facile here, but I don't mean it this way because the truth is it's a mosaic of groups that each party is going after. Women is one. And by the way, that's half the electorate. Yes. And obviously, women are not a monolith. Not a monolith for sure, right? And other issues come into play for everybody. Men is another group, not a monolith, but also it's a big chunk of the electorate. There's been a lot of talk about men drifting away from the Harris side, young men especially uh which by the way speaks to how fleeting um memory can be or for a lot of young men they were not even a voting age during the trump years

right when biden came in on an anti-trump uh basis now many people say well what was i don't really know anything about the trump years right uh the hispanic american uh group is a big uh part of uh the um electorate now and especially in light of the comments, not by Trump, but by obviously a kind of Trump surrogate, I suppose, at that rally in New York. There's a lot going on. Like, 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. Pennsylvania that we talk a lot about has a lot of Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rican descendants. So how will that play? We talk a lot about the Arab American vote, the Muslim American vote in Michigan. How will that play, especially in Detroit? You know, Harris has needed to walk that line. You know, the Biden administration has taken

a lot of flack for its approach in the Middle East and the war in Gaza. You talk about Hispanic Americans, and this goes back to 2016 when Trump was on the build the wall mode. And I heard from a lot of voters in the Southern states and Arizona being one of the battleground states, also a border state. They're not a block either, right? There are a lot of Hispanic Americans who say, yeah, build the wall because illegal immigrants give me, the legal immigrant, a bad name. And I don't like that. So it gets complicated fast. But there really are all these like slivers of the electorate that both parties are targeting

with their messages. And they have to hit all bases. I want to go through with you the various scenarios that could come up here. And just when we're talking about how the night could end, what would be the tidiest way that it ends? large margins in individual states, winning by a lot in Georgia, winning by a lot in North Carolina, winning by a lot in Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin, pick your state. The problem isn't the electoral college, it's the margins in the state. If it's clear that one person or the other widely wins in state X, Y, or Z, it gets a lot harder to challenge. Right. It makes it much harder to be like, oh, this county, we need to recount the votes in this county.

It's too, there's, you know, there's only 100 votes separating. It's so much harder to debate that, exactly. Or to say that it's rigged if everybody voted a particular way. I'm overstating a little bit, of course. Now let's do the more complicated paths and take me through those. Well, that's most of them. Yes. I mean, obviously the first one is that one side or the other side ekes out an electoral college win, right?

Gets to 270, but there's lots of very close. The flip side is if the individual states, it's the mirror of what we were just talking about, I guess, if the individual states are, you know, won or lost on narrow margins. Donald Trump has not been shy about making himself clear that he slash the Republican Party will challenge results of this. And if it is close, it is a lot easier to say it was rigged. They eked out a few fake votes or whatever he says happened. All this money on machines, and they're going to say we may take an extra 12 days to determine. And what do you think happens during that 12 days? They are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing. The key to all of that, or the linchpin, I guess, is Pennsylvania.

That one again, right? The thing in Pennsylvania is, unlike a lot of other states that learned lessons in 2020 about how to speed up the vote count, Pennsylvania did not. So Pennsylvania may not have a final count, almost certainly won't have a final count Tuesday night. If it's very close in Pennsylvania, which all the polls have suggested it will be, and we're late into the night and a lot of votes haven't been counted, which by the way would be normal because they have a lot of mail-in votes and they're not allowed to start in Pennsylvania. They're not allowed to start processing the mail-in votes until election day. That takes time.

So it's normal that it'll go late. It's not indicative of any rigging of the system. If it's close, the expectation is that Donald Trump will say enough of this. Let's move on. I'm the winner. Look, I'm ahead by X amount. Let's call off the rest of it because it shouldn't be all counted today or whatever it is that he'll say. So keep an eye on what Donald Trump does late into the night as the votes are still being counted in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was the one in 2020. It wasn't until Saturday that they came out with,

It wasn't until Saturday that they came out with it, right? Normal. So to answer the question, the narrower the margins, the easier it would be, presumably, for Donald Trump to say, which, by the way, Democrats are anticipating. But what will people broadly, what will people out in the wild think or do or behave or how will they act if Trump, I've been to so many Trump rallies, as you well know, we've talked about them, Jamie. A lot of nice people at these, MAGA has a lot of nice people, but they are true believers. And if Donald Trump says something, they believe him. So if he says he won, the system's rigged, 75 million people or thereabouts will vote for him in this election. Yeah, what are they going to do? What are they going to do? Oh, what are you thinking about as we head into this election? People say is among the most consequential of our time, not just for the U.S., but but for the world. Like what's at the top of your mind? We don't know what's going to happen. And yet, these are not two candidates with a nuance of difference in their view of where they want to take America.

They are polar opposites. They are 180 degrees from each other. You couldn't find two platforms, two parties, two candidates with more differing views for this country. Obviously, you know, Trump's is dark. Harris has been, I'm not trying to personally characterize anything, but hers by and large has been more positivity and let's move on from all that and turn the page, etc. And yet we don't know. And yet it will come down to the wire. And yet the seven states that are in play are neck and neck and neck and neck and neck and neck. To me, that's remarkable. Usually you have a vibe, right? Usually you can sort of tell it could go one way or the other, but it's not. This is like one way, way I'm stretching my arms out here or the other way.

I find that hard to imagine. It kind of blows my mind, to be honest, that we've come to this at this point on this day and we still don't have any idea how this is going to end. Paul, I really want to thank you for coming by. You and I are both going to be watching this very closely tonight. I know that you're going to be on CBC all evening on their TV special, so we'll tune in for sure. And maybe into the next day, too. Who knows?

It sounds like probably, right? It may well be. Exactly. Yeah. Thanks, Jamie. It's always my pleasure. All right. That is all for today. Just a note to say that we are going to be up very, very late Tuesday night, and we'll have an episode ready for you Wednesday morning. day morning.