Morning Wire - Election Wire: The Issues

Episode Date: October 23, 2022

Early voting is already underway in a number of states, we'll examine the issues most important to voters. Will rising inflation and a deadly crime wave sink Democrats at the polls? Or will the so-called Dobbs effect keep Republicans at bay?  We’ll follow the money and look at how each party is leveraging the issues with less than three weeks until election day.  Plus, the battle for the Senate runs through Arizona, we’ll release the latest Daily Wire exclusive poll from one of the most trusted pollsters in the business. Get the facts first on Election Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Will rising inflation and a deadly crime wave sink Democrats at the polls, or will the so-called Dobbs effect keep Republicans at bay? We'll follow the money and look at how each party is leveraging the issues with less than three weeks to go. Plus, Battleground Senate. What do voters think of Blake Masters and Mark Kelly? We'll release the latest Daily Wire exclusive poll right here from one of the most trusted pollsters in the business. Hello and welcome to Election Wire. I'm John Bickley, Daily Wire editor-in-chief, with senior editor Cabot Phillips. Today, we're digging into the issues that will help decide the fate of Biden's first term in office and how much influence his party has on Congress. Cabot, let's get right to the issue that every American is very concerned about, and that's the economy.

That is exactly what this race is becoming more and more about, and that is bad news for Democrats right now. We've talked plenty on the show about how it was a summer of brutal news on the economy. Democrats had to contend with rising inflation. Gas prices started to trickle down a little bit, but then they started to spike right back up in the last month. And just this past week, there was devastating news coming out from the Labor Department. They released the final inflation report before Election Day. And it showed that inflation has not gotten any better, as Democrats have been promising. It's actually gotten even worse.

Core price index is now up. It's rising faster in one year's span than at any point since 1981. And so the Republican message has essentially become, hey, remember how nice things were back in 2020 when we were in charge? Look at what you get under Democrat leadership. and Democrats haven't really had an answer for that because they kept saying inflation all summer it's going to get better. It hasn't now.

And so if you look at the numbers from 2020 to 2022, Republicans are highlighting just how much costs have gone up on virtually everything. Yeah, let's drill into that a little bit. What are the inflation numbers looking like right now? So two years ago, if you look at something like gas, the average price this time two years ago, $2.15 a gallon.

Right now, you're at $391 a gallon. The inflation rate this month two years ago, 1.2% this month, 8.2%. Mortgage rates, we're down around 3.1%. Right now, they're at 7.2%. We've also got grocery prices, 20% higher now than they were two years ago. Electricity in many states up 30% more expensive than it was in 2020. So virtually every category you're looking at, things are more expensive. That's no longer a mystery. But what we weren't really sure of was what sort of political impact would that have. We're seeing now all summer and into just the month before election day. Voter sentiment is completely shifting against Democrats on this issue.

65% of voters in the most recent CBS poll say the country and the economy is moving in the wrong direction. Just 15% of voters say the economy is getting better. Historically, that's been a key metric for predicting which party is going to have success. Republicans, they're very happy for that. Republicans are very happy about that, I should say. Well, it's not hard to see why inflation is the leading issue for Republicans, and it appears to be working. Yeah, and the more you dig into the numbers actually the worse it gets for Democrats. Another poll, that same CBS poll, I should say, from CBS found by a two to one margin, voters think that Democrats made inflation worse over the last year. That's a big factor as well. Who do they blame for the current situation? A separate NBC poll

showed that 60% of voters say that they want Republicans in charge of the economy. In a midterm election where the economy is bigger than any other issue, that again, that's a key metric to be tracking. And we're clearly seeing how affected this is by watching the money that Republicans are pouring it into these campaigns and on which issue they're specifically focusing. Exactly. We always say follow the money. If you follow the money in this case, Republicans so far have spent $150 million on ads touting the state of the economy in a negative way. Now, it is worth pointing out, Democrats have still spent almost $50 million on the economy, but their messaging is very different than Republican messaging. The Republican message has been

Democrats got control of the economy. They pumped trillions of dollars into the economy, and then what did that do? It devalued the dollar. It's hurting inflation. they point to all of the spending as the negative aspect hurting our economy right now. Democrats are now on defensive saying, well, wait a second, the inflation reduction act, as they call it, all those stimulus payments. Remember the checks we gave you guys? Weren't those pretty good? That actually kept the economy afloat.

And the real reason for inflation are its greedy corporations, it's profit and price gouging from these capitalists. So they're blaming all of the economic woes more on the private sector, less on government spending. So both sides are spending on the economy. it's just very different messages on how they're talking about it. All right, so that's the economy and the Republicans clearly feel that's going to be a winning issue for them.

We've also got crime. That's always been an important issue. But in the last two years, there's been a rise in violent crime. We saw that in 2020, 2021. We're seeing it again in 2022. This has become such a big issue that a lot of Democrats that were actually pro-defund the police have actually reversed course, started really leaning into this message as well. What do we see going on with the issue of crime?

Yeah, it's not hard to see why crime has become such a big issue. which every city and state saw a spike after 2020. And maybe in some states where crime wasn't as big of an issue in the past, it is now front and center. A recent Politico poll to that point found that three quarters of Americans say that crime is still a major issue for them, which, again, is an issue that benefits Republicans. Most polling shows them up in double digits on which party people think would handle crime better.

And keep in mind, for many Americans, this is their first chance to vote at a federal election since that defund the police movement happening. There's a lot of pent-up anger over people saying, hey, you guys took money away from our police department and look what happened. Look at the crime going up. A lot of people feel like there's a correlation there. We saw that movement born in 2020, but we didn't see a lot of those policies implemented until 2021, 2022.

And now we're seeing the backlash against them. And it seems like it's, you know, helping Republicans here. And it also explains why Democrats have shifted their message so much on defund the police. In 2020, 2021, a lot of these candidates were cozying up to the movement. It was a winning issue in many ways. a lot of voters still had a favorable view of the Black Lives Matter movement, of defund the police. That has completely changed. And you can see that by how candidates are talking about it. Even someone who's not really a candidate right now, Nancy Pelosi, we remember her famous comments where she said defund the police is dead.

Joe Biden got up at the state of the union. We all remember him proudly saying fund the police. And get this, even the D-Triple C, which is the Democrat committee that oversees electing as many House Democrats as possible, they sent out an internal memo that leaked to Democrat candidates nationwide. And they said, quote, one of the things we found in 2020 is that the attack on crime, the defund attack often went unanswered, and that was something we needed to address head on. So they're now admitting, hey, we didn't really do a good job of talking about crime in 2020. Defund the police is no longer popular. They are now advocating for their candidates to have at least one current or retired law enforcement officer go on the record saying that they do not want to defund the police.

So fully top-down messaging to these candidates reverse course on this issue. It's exactly what they're doing. It's completely turning. So as expected, we're seeing the Republicans lean in on the issues of the economy and crime, and that's really working for them in many states. Democrats, meanwhile, are looking at the abortion issue as an opportunity for them to maybe pull over some voters. How's that playing out?

Democrats were given sort of a political lifeline, if you will, with the overturning of Roevey-Wade. Obviously, that was a huge victory for pro-life groups and pro-life voters. But whatever your thoughts are on abortion, it's impossible to deny that it gave Democrats sort of a jolt in this race. If you looked at the generic congressional ballots coming into the summer before that ruling, Democrats were down four or five points. Immediately after that Dobbs ruling, Democrats jumped up and they tied Republicans in the generic balloting. Impossible to deny that this was a winning issue for Democrats with especially suburban female voters. And Democrats, they started spending big money as a result. So polling has shown that the issue of abortion does play.

play into the Democrats' favor. And they've really bet the House on that. They've invested a lot of money on that issue. What is that looking like now? What kind of numbers have we seen? Well, if you look at the month of September alone, John, Democrats spent $73 million on ads related to abortion. That was a third of their entire budget. So they're going all in. And most viewers, they've already heard plenty of what those ads sound like. It's saying, you know, Republicans want to take away a woman's right to choose. But the problem for Democrats right now is that the issue of abortion is quickly fading in the polls. And Democrat leaders, As a result, they're now warning Democrats against leaning too close and too much into abortion.

For example, James Carville, the famous Democrat strategist, recently said, quote, you've got to be more aggressive than just yelling abortion every other word. Bernie Sanders had the exact same message. He called it political malpractice for Democrats to only talk about abortion and not be talking about the economy. He had a recent interview on CNN. Listen to his message. I think Democrats have got the fight to make sure that it is women who control their own bodies

not the government. So I think this is a very important issue. But I don't believe it can be the only issue. At a time when we have an economy in which the wealthiest people, the billionaire class, are getting much, much richer while working people are struggling to put food on the table, it goes without saying that we have got to focus on the economy. And on that topic, there was a really interesting Harvard poll that came out recently, where they asked voters, which issue is most important for you? And then they asked them, what do you think? think the two major parties are focusing on the most and kind of how do those two line up? So if you look at the issues, if you ask voters, what do they think Republicans first are

focusing most on? The three issues are immigration, inflation, and jobs. And coincidentally, those are the three issues in polling that voters say are the most important to them. So Republicans doing a nice job of lining up their messaging with the issues that are most important for voters. Now, Democrats, they've got a problem on their hands. That's Harvard poll found, According to voters, the issues that Democrats are focusing the most on are January 6th, women's rights and climate change. None of those three issues fall in the top three for most important to voters, and only one of them, women's rights, falls in the top five. All of the other issues, the other two issues there, are not even in the top eight or nine for voters in this poll. And so you've kind of got this dichotomy of Democrats focusing on issues that voters don't really seem to care about nearly as much as Republicans there.

They're three for three on focusing on the things most important. So we have a real misalignment there with Democrats and voters' priorities. That could be real problematic. Definitely seems that way. Before we get to another exclusive poll from our partners at Trafalgar, we want to get a quick update on some of the states that we haven't talked about as much, but still look like they're going to come down to the wire. All right, Cabot, what have you got for us?

We're starting first with the governor's race up in Michigan. Now, we haven't talked a ton about this race, but it is getting much, much closer than a lot of political experts had expected. The Democrat incumbent Gretchen Whitmer is facing a serious chance. challenge from Republican Tudor Dixon, the latest polling from insider advantage has that race tied. Keep in mind, Whitmer was up by double digits throughout the summer. We started to see signs of the race getting closer. Some polls do still have Whitmer with a sizable advantage. But again, now that we're seeing polls that have her tied, you cannot ignore that. Keep an eye on the Michigan

governor's race. Next, we go down to North Carolina. This was a state. Republicans were hoping would be a little bit of an easier race for them, given the fact that outgoing Senator Richard Burr was pretty popular in the state. His seat is up for election now. You've got Democrat Sherry Beasley in a very tight race with Republican Ted Bud. The latest polling shows are down one. Other polls show Bud with a little more comfortable of a lead, two to three point range. But this is a state Republicans desperately need if they're going to take the majority in the Senate. They cannot afford to lose this race. And finally, we go out to New Hampshire, where Democrat incumbent Maggie Hassan is facing a much closer race than she would have hoped for and much closer than many political

on the outside looking in would have expected. There you've got Republican retired general Don Bullduck, who is giving her a run for her money. She was up huge at the start of the race over the summer. But keep in mind, New Hampshire has a very late primary. Republicans did not elect Bulldoch to this position as the nominee until September 15th. So really early on in the campaign, he was playing catch up trying to get name recognition out there. Hasn't, the start of the month, had an 80 to 1 advantage when it came to cash on hand for her campaign.

So Bulldoch did not get his first statewide ad up until October 6th on the airwaves. And Republicans had been a little cautious about getting involved in this race at the national level, but now that they see how tight the race is, there's a seven point advantage for Hassan. Other points or other polls have Bulldoch within one, two, even three points. Now that Republicans are seeing that, millions of dollars are flooding into the state because we've got a race on our hands. Keep an eye on New Hampshire. This is when Democrats, we're not expecting to be this close, but there could be a Republican senator.

come November. And this brings us to our under the radar segment where we're looking at races that aren't getting much national attention but could help sway the balance of power in November. Cabot, where are you looking this week? I'm looking at New Hampshire's first congressional district where Caroline Levitt, a Republican, is looking to become one of the youngest members of Congress in history, and she's doing it in a very interesting way. Typically, you know, New England conservatives are thought of as a little bit more moderate to appeal to independence. And it's just a different type of Republican often up in New England. Caroline is running as a staunch conservative. She's proud campaigning on the fact that she worked in the Trump White House. We got a chance to talk to Caroline recently

with Morning Wire. Here's what she had to say about her campaign. We knocked over 70,000 doors. I'm at a different event in a different town every single night. And I hear directly from voters. Inflation is at the top of their minds. This winter, literally, people are going to have to choose between heating and eating in our state because of this administration's policy. policies. So there she is talking about the key Republican issue, the economy. Yeah, and it's worth noting we did reach out to her opponent, Chris Pappas, multiple times, got him on the phone. They said they didn't have time for an interview. But there are reinforcements also coming for Caroline. Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democrat presidential candidate who recently

left the party publicly announced that she'll be making an appearance with Caroline. So starting to get more national attention, Republicans and others, turning their eyes to a race that very very few people thought was, you know, in reach for Republicans. Right. All right. So every episode, we discuss some potential pivot points, a moment that we think could end up having a significant impact on a race. We'll start with yours, Cabot.

What did you see this week that you think was a major pivot point or significant moment? Well, I, like many people, was keeping a very close eye on the Georgia Senate race. The two had their first debate between Democrat, Raphael Warnock, the incumbent, and Republican Herschel Walker. There were a lot of eyes wondering what's going to happen with Walker. How's he going to perform in this debate? He's not the best speaker. He's the first to admit that.

He calls himself sort of a country boy, whereas Warnock has that background as a preacher. He's a very eloquent speaker in many ways. But Walker held his own in that debate. Even the AJC, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, traditionally a more liberal paper, had a headline reading, quote, Herschel Walker's debate performance, scores points for his campaign. There were a few moments that really got a lot of traction online, sort of the more viral moments.

But this is the one, this one on abortion, that had people talking. that a patient's room is too narrow and small and cramped a space for a woman, her doctor, and the United States government. Did he not mention that there was a baby in that room as well? And also, did he not mention that he asking the taxpayer to pay for it? So he'd bringing the government back into the room. It's the only debate before election day. Early voting is starting in Georgia.

So I think that could be a real pivot point in this race. Well, a razor-thin margin. in the polls in that race. So all it takes is moving the needle a little bit with some of these voters, and it could end up being the difference. Definitely. Well, my pivot point this week is one that could impact the Arizona governor's election. CNN's Dana Bash brought on Democrat Katie Hobbs for an interview. Bash had interviewed Republican Kerry Lake earlier in Lake had called Hobbs a coward for refusing to debate her. So Bash, she didn't pull any punches. She pressed Hobbs. Why she wouldn't debate Lake? The moment went viral for all the wrong reasons for the Hobbs team.

Here are some excerpts. Carrie Lake has made it clear time and time again that she's not interested in having substantive, in-depth conversations about the issues that matter to Arizonans. And she's refused to sit down in a one-on-one lengthy conversation. She just came and sat down with me and answered my questions for a lot of minutes. Yeah. A lot of Democrats are questioning your decision. If you think she's as dangerous as you're saying to democracy, is it your responsibility as a candidate who wants to run Arizona? to show and explain who their alternative is?

That is exactly what I'm doing right now. So we see there, Hobbs' refusal to debate, really coming back to Hauner and might haunt her on Election Day. Now, for more on Arizona, we're debuting exclusive new polling from the state with our partner, Robert Cahili of Trafalgar polling. Robert, welcome back on. Thanks.

So we're excited about this poll. We dug down into the numbers in Arizona, talk to a bunch of voters. what did we find on the Senate race that pits Democrat Mark Kelly against Republican Blake Masters? Well, this thing is very, very tight. We've got 47.4 to 46.4 Kelly over Masters. Just, I mean, one point. It is, I mean, this race, every time we poll it, it continues to get tighter. So one point edge for the Democrat Kelly? Incumbent, yeah. And what about the governor's race that pits Democrat Katie Hobbs against Republican Kerry Lake? How's that shape?

up. Carrie Lake continues to maintain the lead. She's had between two and four and three, and this one is right at three, and so it continues to maintain a lead. Okay, so some strong momentum, it seems like, for her. What did you find when you drilled down in terms of the cross-tabs in this poll? Well, what we found most interesting is, yet again, young people are siding with a lot of the Republican candidates. It's funny, they don't identify as Republicans when you ask them what party they're in. But when you ask them who they're for, they tend to be for that, especially the party's not in power. It's, you know, it's like you've been in casino all night. You've been betting red, and you say, you know, I'm just going to bet black for a while.

They're not becoming Republicans. They're just tired of what they're getting. Got it. Yeah, because that's not a trend anybody was expecting. We actually saw that with the Pennsylvania poll as well. We're seeing it all over the country. What about the minority vote in Arizona? Well, the minority, the most significant minority in Arizona is Hispanic. And that is, once again, the Republicans are making some real headway in that, and that's over 40% in both races that are voting for the Republican. That is a very tough trend for the Democrats to adjust to because Arizona is such a big portion of the vote. What about the independent vote in Arizona? Well, the independent vote is most fascinating in the

Senate race, it was 0.5 apart. So these guys are split in independence, right? right down the middle. And this is, you know, very much a state where people don't look at a party and party loyalty is not a big thing. When you think of Kirsten's enemy, you think of John McCain. But it's more like a people are more independent. So that independent voters, everything, and for it to be virtually tied, is something strong. So we have masters down by one, the Republican candidate for Senate. Do you think there could be a, you know, a Kerry Lake effect on voting day? Carrie Lake's got a lot of momentum. She seems like she's got a pretty healthy lead.

Could we have Kerry Lake voters end up benefiting Masters? Yes, we have a lot of voters that are not regular voters that do just grew up watching Carrie Lake on TV and like her that are going to vote in this election and don't really care about politics. And the odds of either, they're probably going to vote with the other guy in the same party. So I think she's had a very positive effect for Masters.

And they both kind of have the same, you know, I'm from the outside of me. Even though she's replaced from Republican governor, she's making it clear she wants to go a different direction. Final question. So undecides, we've got a fair number, what, 4 or 5% in Arizona, similar to Pennsylvania. Where do we think

undecides are going to land on voting day? Well, what we saw is with 56 and 55% respectively among the undecided, felt either strongly disapproved or disapproved with the job that Biden's doing. And when you have that kind of a strong number

on that side, I don't see them voting for the one aligned with the same party. They end up voting against the party for the president they're unhappy with. Once again, independence and undecided's going to decide this race. Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on. Well, polls are important for trends, but it's the voters who have the real power. So now we turn to you, the voters. Every week on election wire, we speak to Americans from across the country about which issues they care about the most. Here's what they're telling us. proportion right now, you know? That's a big topic that we've been talking about. So I live in Philadelphia, crime's very important. So I'll rank crime number one,

women's issues number two, inflation number three, taxes. For me, it's the economy. It's just how badly the country is just losing on every front. The economy, the border, and getting the Bidens locked up. We need to just put capitalism back in this country, you know? I guess you could say like abortion or like different things like that. I just think there's too many taxes right now imposed on United States citizens. Since Larry Krasner was elected into office, the lives of the police officers in Philadelphia has absolutely gone to garbage because of him.

I feel like we need to put Americans first. And that's the number one thing for me. I don't understand why that's wrong. I'm all about giving for other people. I'm very inclusive. I'm nice to everyone. and I think I'm kind, but I feel like, I don't know. I would just hope that we could put Americans first

and that that's okay and it's not a bad thing. It's been a disaster. Look at everything, right? Look at gas prices, look at the economy, look at inflation. They blew it. They blew it. The border crisis, yeah, it's bad. But keep sending them, keep sending them to the people that want them, you know? Honestly, I mean, I kind of wish we could have like a finance.

a good middle ground on abortion. As far as like sometimes I feel like there are cases where you do need it, but I don't also feel like you should just be able to go and have an abortion whenever you feel like just because I feel like that's kind of like you need to take responsibility for the things that you're doing. Well, thank you for joining us on election wire this episode. We'll be back each week with all the election news you need to know.