Pod Save America - Pollercoaster: State of the Race with Dan Pfeiffer (Subscription Preview)

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Lean into the long Labor Day weekend with a special 'Best Of' preview episode of Crooked’s subscriber-exclusive series, Pollercoaster. In this episode, enjoy highlights featuring Dan Pfeiffer and expert guests as they share their insights on latest polls and the state of the Presidential elections. Don’t miss out on future episodes – be sure to sign up for Friends of the Pod at crooked.com/friends. More on Pollercoaster: Does every new poll make you want to crawl under your desk and get into the fetal position? Do you hate the polls but can’t quit them? Well, we have a podcast that’s just for you (and us!). Pollercoaster is Crooked’s new home for exclusive in-depth analysis across the biggest national polls, latest voter trends, and closest races up and down the ballot. Join former White House Communications Director and Pod Save America host Dan Pfeiffer and a series of expert guests to break down the polls, unpack what they actually mean, and whether or not it’s time to hit the panic button. New episodes of Pollercoaster drop twice monthly for Friends of the Pod subscribers.

Hi, I'm Dan Pfeiffer. And I'm Jon Favreau. The Cricket staff is out enjoying a well-deserved break this holiday weekend ahead of the final election push. So instead of your normally scheduled Pod Save America, we're excited to bring you a very special episode of Dan's subscriber exclusive show. On Polar Coaster, we explore what the polls really mean and assess whether or not it's time to hit the panic button.

In this special episode, you'll hear excerpts from my conversations with polling experts, Selinda Lake and Terrence Woodbury, on where Trump and Harris stand in swing states, and with black voters. Plus we'll get into what Dems need to do to secure an absolutely vital win in November. All right, I guess I'll wait to hit the panic button until after I hear the episode.

Uh, get access to Polar Coaster and other exclusive crooked pods like Inside 2024 by subscribing to Friends of the Pod, sign up through Apple Podcasts or head to crooked.com slash friends to get our discord community benefits, ad free pod save America and much more. Okay, let's get into it. In 2016 and 2020, the polls underrepresented Trump voters. Do you have any reason to believe that that could be the case again?

Or do you think there's been enough changes in the industry or shifts in the electorate to mitigate that concern? So originally, against Biden, I was not at all worried about it. There was no such thing as a shy Trump voter, for God's sake. It sounded like your idea, like we're going to make Trump more mega. Yes, right. So I was not worried about it at all. I do think now there might be, and we may get to the point where Trump says, don't answer the polls, which had a real impact on us. We have

all changed our methodology a lot. We're all looking at multiple turnout scenarios. We now all make sure that we don't replace a Trump voter with a Biden voter, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm always nervous about that. And I'm always nervous about their surge in turnout. They've also done a lot more in terms of vote by mail. They're now getting into vote by mail. And Trump specifically wants vote by mail.

That's dangerous from two aspects. It's dangerous because you know it may up their turnout. It's also dangerous because it can reduce a lot of ticket splitting. Women when they can vote in the voting booth get to make up their own mind with their own priorities. Interesting. Husbands and wives sit down together to vote by mail. And so she's ready, enthusiastically marking Hillary or Harris, and her husband says, what are you doing? We're not Harris voters.

We're voting for Trump. And then she goes, oh, enough, I'm not fighting about this. Yeah. So that worries me too. So yes, I am concerned. And I think hopefully, you know, the current polls, four points ahead,

nine points ahead among independents, getting our turnout out and now having the ability to do that less, it's clear the third party still pull from us. So getting that vote down, this team knows what it needs to do. It'll do it well. But yes, I always worry that we should not underestimate the Trump's surgeon. As disgusted as we get, they can get reinforced. So Blueprint Research, which is a democratic research firm, did a very in-depth poll of the issues that relate to Kamala Harris, what people know about her, where she has some advantages and

disadvantages. And what is interesting, that poll is fascinating, but some of the top line takeaways are people don't know a lot about her. That's an important point. They don't know a lot about our policy positions. She has natural advantages on abortion. She's been talking, she's been talking about it. I mean, that's been the thing she has focused the most on in public since, uh, the Dobbs decision and she's obviously much more comfortable, uh, and persuasive talking about it than President

Biden has been, who while he has taken some very bold stances about restoring Roe and done some aggressive, you know, aggressive executive actions on it, that's obviously not his favorite issue. It's not one he's most comfortable with. She talks about it, you know, in all the dimensions of it, right? In great detail, you know, IVF, contraception, people dealing with ectopic pregnancies, all like she's just, she has been great on the issue.

So she's advantaged there. She has work to do on the border. She has some, there's been this bullshit narrative that she's the borders are, and that's where Republicans are going. So she's gonna have to do some work there to find a way to defend herself and chart a potentially different course going forward than the administration has had to date. But this poll really found those interesting

was because she's so undefined, she has the capacity to take a lot of credit for the good things that the Biden administration has done and find ways to distance herself from some of the things people like less and the people blame her less, right? People generally don't think the vice president's responsible for managing the economy. So she is taking less of the anger and inflation than Biden was because she is a former prosecutor and I think she has the capacity to talk about how she took on the big banks and won all this money for people in a huge housing settlement, has the predatory lenders, all these other things. She has the capacity, she is seen as,

and the potential to be seen even more as someone who will take on bad actors in the economy, powerful special interests, that I think could be very compelling. So it's the same issues that Biden had. She just has more upside to fill in the blanks in ways that are positive and persuasive to the swing footer universe. How does Tim Walls help her win? Well, first of all, let's put this in context. The most that any VP has ever made

a difference is 2%. And the most difference they make is on the day they're announced, creating excitement, saying something about the character of the person, saying something about their decision making abilities. I think Tim Walz is a perfect complement. First of all, clear executive ability, likeability, relatability, and part of the Midwest strategy, even though he's not from one of the battleground Midwest states, he is still communicates those Midwestern values. And I think he's great in terms of answering some of the woke agenda. You know, you mentioned that obviously he's not from Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.

You know, there's some talk that Josh Shapiro could have helped in Pennsylvania, a state that has been decided by less than a point last couple of times around. Mark Kelly could have helped in Arizona, a critical state. Vice President Harry needs at least one of those to win and Pennsylvania is probably the key one. Any risk in not picking particularly Shapiro? Obviously, as you say, one to two points. There's some research that shows that there's a home state advantage of about one to one and a half points that obviously would be twice the margin of what Pennsylvania has

been in recent elections. What do you think? Well, I think that particularly with such short notice, I love Josh Shapiro and I love Mark Kelly. And I think Josh Shapiro is just an incredible leader. I think he's going to be president someday. But I think there was an awful lot of controversy. And when you've only got 90 days left, it's good not to have controversies. The other study that doesn't get talked about as much is democratic governors improve the margin in their states whether they're on the ticket or not So they improve it about a point and a half. So We're gonna have that advantage anyway, and Josh Piro is a very very popular governor

He's gonna campaign hard his slogan was get it done, which is a perfect slogan for the moment campaign hard. His slogan was get it done, which is a perfect slogan for the moment. So I think we get all the advantages and it's like a twofer. And we had only good picks. And I think these people will campaign in their states anyway. I mean, Mark Kelly loved to have an astronaut, love his border experience, love the military, love among guns. These people are going to campaign in their states anyway. they're going to help in their states a lot. And they're going to help validate and introduce vice president Harris, who still is not that well known. So we get all the advantages of everybody this way.

And I think that's a big, big plus. How important do you think the contrast with JD Vance is? Like you basically beat me to the point I try to make all the time as the vice presidential, like it's an important moment for the campaign. It's a time when everyone pays attention. It's great for organizing, great for fundraising. But in terms of actually moving the race, you know, you're talking a point or two here, which is, as we both pointed out, decisive in recent elections.

But how important do you think the contrast is just comparing Vance and Walls? Like they're going to be on stage together at some point in the coming weeks. Does that say anything? Is there a political advantage there? Does it say anything about different styles between Trump and Kamala Harris? I think it's a huge advantage. I mean, Governor Walz really brings people together. He's a uniter. He is not a divider at all.

He does not say whacked out things and he has great respect for women, including the women in his state. And he's the one that coined the term weird. JD Vance is just dangerous and weird in my opinion and his wife can try to explain why you'd say these things but I think real people are having trouble understanding how you even come up with these configurations. I think that JD Vance was a Midwest strategy pick and he may end up being just good for energizing the base, but they are turning

inward. They are getting so under siege that they are turning inward. And what they are doing to energize their base and keep their base on board is really jeopardizing the swing vote. So this stuff is horrifying to suburban voters, to women voters. And I think we're going to see a record gender gap. And Tim Walz has always won with women voters. In close races, he has solidly won women voters. So he is someone who comes across as someone

who respects women, fights for women, delivers for women, and delivers for their families, gets their lives. And JD Vance is just mystifying it every turn. I still remain mystified by the Vance pick. Cause you know, you're right. It like, to the extent there's any value at all, it's the base. That's the one place where Trump has no problems. And is there like a MAGA voter somewhere who thinks that Donald Trump is not MAGA

enough, but JD Vance will push him over the, I don't think that person exists. Right now I can imagine a voter who, you voter who maybe is a Biden Trump voter in rural or exurban Pennsylvania or Michigan. They don't really know Kamala Harris that well. They have some concerns like they've maybe never voted for a woman or a person of color for a president or even governor before. And Tim Walz could be the tiebreaker there, but the political logic of Tim Walls, right, without overstating it makes a ton of sense to me. The political logic of JD Vance, I'm still somewhat mystified by. All politics is personal. And I truly believe it was the two sons, the Trump sons that sealed that deal. And I think they stopped vetting and they should have kept

vetting. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Talk to me a little bit about what you've seen in the polling shift over the last few weeks here as Vice President Harris has become the nominee. Well, we've seen the enthusiasm gap and our side now is enthusiastic as theirs. We should not underestimate how enthusiastic their side is. And so, but our side very enthusiastic to see an incredible surge with young people. We now have a nine point advantage with independence. Biden had had an advantage with independence for a long time, but was losing it toward the end of his run. We see

African Americans completely solidified. African American women, the number may even be what Biden got. African American following very quickly behind. Young men of color voting very strongly. And now the most recent polls today show Latinos as well. Now the flip side is you see a little bit more reticence with older non-college women, seniors, where actually Biden was doing slightly better. So there is some shifting but tremendous unification, enthusiasm, mobilization of the base. You've also seen the mobilization of the base. You've also seen the complete collapse of the third party candidates.

You know, where people said, I'm sick of the lesser of two evils. There are a lot of people now that think, I don't have a lesser of two evils. I have something I'm excited about. Is it fair to say that it felt certainly after the debate and sort of the weeks before that, that we were in a world and we're the only really realistic path to 270 was to sweep Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, the second district in Nebraska. Right.

The polling, at least right now, makes it feel like we're back in the game where Kamala Harris has multiple paths. That's probably still the easiest path, given the history of those states, but now it felt like Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia were off the table. Is it fair to say they're all competitive now? Absolutely. And the latest data out of Georgia, and this has got to be one of my all time favorite numbers,

were even all of their two senators and their governor are very, very popular. And what did Donald Trump spend his entire rally doing? Tearing apart his own governor. Yeah. I think what he's doing and what we're doing make these states open. Registration in North Carolina just tipped.

The Republicans have been running ahead of us the whole year, the whole two years, frankly. Now Democrats are ahead. So you know, some of these are stretches, but yeah, we've spread them thin and they're shorter of money. We've got a lot of models and we got a lot of places to go. And people are excited about that enthusiasm. And it's always scary when you're down to one state or one seat that it can be taken away from you.

In the polling that I've seen, mostly public but some private shows, obviously, as you indicate, dramatic improvement with black voters, Latino voters, young voters, but still a little below where Biden was in 2020. And if Harris is losing some of what Biden had with either older voters or white voters, what's sort of the priority order and targets to get up to a win number here? So the electorate has shifted a little bit too since 2020 and certainly since 2016. So that's good news because there are more of the kinds of voters she's doing well with. And you're seeing registration increase, although I think we all should be very worried about voter suppression. But in general, I think the biggest dynamic is she is going to do better with women,

I think, than Joe Biden did. And she's not going to get all the men. Now, Biden might not have gotten all the white, blue collar men he got in 2020 either. No, for sure. Yeah. So we're going to have probably a record gender gap. And of course, the formula for success for any Democrat in any close race, you got to win women by more than you lose men by. And that's what we got to make sure we do.

Then we got to get our vote out. And that looks a whole lot easier today than it did a month ago. There was a conversation happening in the media that perhaps Trump was overseeing the largest racial realignment electoral politics since the Civil Rights Act. As we sit here today, where are we? Oh, man, Dan, the world has changed, you know, and nowhere do I see the world changing more than I do in the cross tabs.

That's where you live, the cross tabs. I live in the cross tabs. That is my world, right? My world is a spreadsheet. So when I look at that world, I see Kamala Harris really beginning to reassemble the Democratic coalition that we thought was splintering. That you know, we had some time to bring back together, but in four weeks, we have seen her quite literally bring back the 2020 Biden coalition,

where Donald Trump has always been winning about 90% of 2020 Trump voters, right? But Joe Biden was only winning about 74% of 2020 Biden voters. Well, already in four weeks, we see Kamala Harris winning 90% of voters that previously voted for Joe Biden. So she's reassembling that coalition and she's doing that primarily with young voters and

voters of color. Because that's what the Delta was, right? People that Biden was struggling with who had not come home are primarily young voters, black voters, Latino voters, and particularly young black and Latino voters. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And look, I think the Biden campaign always anticipated that those voters would eventually come home. And we had about, you know, three months to bring them home.

But in four weeks, we have seen her doing 12 points better with young voters, 15 points better with women voters and 22 points better with black voters in four weeks. And where does the 22 points better with black voters put us against the 2020 benchmark? Right. Is that what you're operating with the idea that to win, she's got to hit 2020 numbers, at least with black voters, Latino voters, young voters? So I actually think she's got to do a little bit better with voters of color. You know, Joe Biden had a unique coalition. Scranton Joe had a unique appeal to white seniors and to white suburbs. And we see Kamala Harris maintaining that coalition. But in order for us to, for me to be confident, for me to take a sigh of relief, it is going to be to exceed Joe Biden's 2020 numbers with

young voters and with black voters. And what we've seen her do in four weeks, gives me a lot of confidence in what we can do with the remaining 86 days. Let's take another quick break and we'll be right back. Have you seen bleed with older white voters or rural voters yet? It's amazing, Dan. She's maintaining. In fact, she's doing one point better among seniors than Scranton Jehu is doing. It shocks me. But if we can maintain that coalition, it really does open up the battleground map.

Do you think there's still more work to do with black voters to get up to those 2020 numbers? We're still a little short of that in some of the polling I've seen. Is that right? Absolutely. We have some work to do. So look, she's at what? 71, 72% with black voters. That's about where Joe Biden was at about 76% with black voters. So we have some work to do, but again, I want to see her exceed Joe Biden's numbers with black voters. She has unique appeal to the black community, a unique appeal to AAPI, to a next generation of voters, especially Gen Z and

millennials. And so I expect her to exceed Joe Biden's numbers with young voters and voters of color. And yes, we have work to do there because, you know, Dan, what's not lost on me is that that remaining 20%, right? If she's at 71%, and let's take that 10% are going to vote for Donald Trump. That remaining 20% is fundamentally different than the previous 70, right? This is the most cynical, the most disaffected. Are they a little younger? Is that the case? They are younger. And look, while they are disaffected and disengaged, one misperception is that they are uninformed. And that is just not the case. I sit in focus groups with these

voters every day. They know what's happening. The other misperception was that what made them double haters was that they didn't like Joe Biden and Donald Trump. That's not what makes them double haters. They hate political parties. They hate the political system. That's what really made them double haters. And so by definition, they don't know as much about Kamala Harris.

And so we have an opportunity here to continue to reintroduce her and to explain to them who she fights for, why she fights for them, and why she would fight for them. Is that the most effective message? We've obviously as a party done a lot of fear mongering about Trump over the years. And I'm not denigrating the strategy. We won in 18, we won in 20, we won in 22. That has worked, but this is a different challenge. Is that right?

Well, yeah. This is the biggest difference between the race that we had four weeks ago and the race that we have now. The Biden versus Trump compared to the Harris versus Trump is that the vibes have changed more than anything. And one of the things that have changed the vibes is that we don't have two candidates whose path to victory requires reducing their opponent's negatives, right? By just driving down their negatives. I feel like negatives is like a thermostat.

Like, is it going up or is it going down? That's exactly right. And so the vibes have changed, right? And so now we get to inject joy into this race. There was a real hope deficit in the previous rematch. I kept telling folks the only thing less popular than Donald Trump or Joe Biden to young people was the rematch of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. When we look at national polling, right, there's a sort of an article of faith that national polling in the Latino vote is somewhat misleading, right? Because you have the Latino votes, incredibly diverse, Florida with Cubans and Venezuelans kind of skewed.

It's a very different population than you have in Arizona, Nevada, et cetera. That's not true in the same way with the black vote, right? Like the national numbers in the battleground state numbers should be somewhat in line. Is that right? They have been pretty similar. Look, I think Trump won about 12% nationally. You can see about that number in each battleground state. I think the highest he may have gotten was 13 or 14, which is in the margin of error.

So yeah, it's pretty consistent from the national to the battleground. I think the key here is that again, it's that remaining 20%. So let's do the math real fast. So Trump's still at about that 12, right? In polling, Kamala Harris is at 76, you said about, and how much of that undecided she has to win? Almost all of it, right? So if you're at 12 and 76, you said about, and how much of that undecided she has to win almost all of it, right? So if you're at 12 and 76, you have a Delta there, right? She's going to win that whole Delta, right? Yeah. I mean, we have to close that gap. Right. And so

my goal is to not only close the gap of the remaining undecideds to make sure that we consolidate those third party curious voters, but it's to continue to disqualify Donald Trump to some of the black voters that are still considering voting for him. There's still new information to introduce about Donald Trump. I know his age, his criminality, his sexual mis- all of those things are known to the public. There's still some new information that we get to introduce here that will continue to disqualify him to more of those black voters. And you've seen in polling focus groups that that is an effective message with some of those voters? Absolutely. But the difference is, and this might be counterintuitive because black voters are extremely concerned about racism. So it's counterintuitive to

say that racism isn't disqualifying, right? Right. But they know he's racist. It's old news, right? That's exactly right. Just like they knew he was a criminal, which is why the convictions didn't change his numbers amongst his group. But the part that we get to introduce to them is the violence, right? It is the fact that they have forgotten how bad it was and certainly don't think it can get worse. They forgot about stand back and standby with the proud boys. They certainly don't know that he's bringing those same proud boys on stage at every rally and saluting them and promising them immunity. And that clear and present danger that Donald Trump is putting our communities in,

that is what's disqualifying, not his racism. Because frankly, for that last 20%, racism is kind of built into the system. Right. That's right. I literally hear it in focus groups every day. They're all racist. It's not like if you just defeat Donald Trump, racism's over. Right. That's exactly right. There's this very online debate about how much she should lean into her role as a prosecutor, not just with the black vote, but just generally, it felt like she got a little wrapped around the axle with it in the 2020 primary. She has been not shy about it in this election. And it's been a big part of the ads. Is that compelling? Is there any potential risk there with black voters? So notably, you know, the environment is so different.

You know, in 2020, she was running in a post George Floyd environment, right? Where there was a racial uprising and specifically, young people demanding accountability and justice from police misconduct. And so that environment just was not conducive for a prosecutor. And we saw that with her dropping out before the first primary. This is a very different environment. Now she's running against a felon, a convicted felon.

And I do think that her experience as a prosecutor, her knowing Donald Trump's type, but also, and this is the part that, again, I think is new information that we get to introduce, and that is some of the progressive steps that she took as a prosecutor, right? The back on track program being one of the first states in the, in the nation that demanded body cameras for every police officer. There's, there's work that she did that I do think will inoculate her position as a prosecutor to some of

the voters that will be concerned. Yeah, I tend to think this conversation is like a little uni-dimensional, right? You know, you see this in polling a lot. Some of the voters who are most concerned about crime are black voters. Right. And so you can be tough on crime, have smart policy take on crime, and also have smart criminal justice reform positions. Right. It's not. And as I basically think, we're just overly binary about it, that you're either soft on crime to use the Republican term or you're too tough on crime.

And I think her record is actually pretty good in both fronts. And the prosecutor thing, I also think, whereas also the conversation is a little overly simplified because it's her bio. It allows you to get into things that aren't just crime as understood by the Republican campaign ads, but taking on the big banks, taking on predatory lenders, that sort of stuff matters a lot too. Because that's her populist credentialing. It's her, I'll fight for you credentialing too. And it's sort of like, you are who you are, and you got to run as who you are. And

to do anything else is a fool's errand. That's exactly right. And so what makes Bio different from resume is that the bio is why she's a prosecutor. The resume is that she was a prosecutor. But the bio is that she was impacted by a friend who was being sexually assaulted by her stepfather and wanted to keep people safe. That's a part of the bio that we have to layer in here.

It's not just what she's done and what she's accomplished, but why she did it and who she was fighting for while she was doing it. The other thing that I think is important is that I think her record does demonstrate that we can reject that false choice, the false choice between safety from crime or holding people accountable that hurt our communities. I think that her record proves that she did both. And I think that that is exactly what we get to do for the next 86 days. The Trump campaign prior to the switch made a big show of the fact that black men were

their primary target. That's who they were going after. They seem to still be sticking with that. Is that the group that obviously the world has changed? That's a small, that's not a smaller target, but they're not backing away from it. Is that still the primary group within the black community that Kamala Harris has to persuade is black men? so As we see her doing 22% better amongst black people a lot better with black men. That's exactly right

She is closing that gap across the black electorate, right? She's closing the generation gap. She's closing the gender gap electorate, right? She's closing the generation gap. She's closing the gender gap. Donald Trump has made men of color and not just black men, a central part of his campaign since 2016. That is not a shift here. I do think that he is maybe pursuing the wrong target now, you know,

along with him not shifting to a new candidate is not shifting to a new strategy and that this black woman is going to have a unique appeal to black voters, also black men, but also that the way to disqualify her to black men is not to question her blackness. It's certainly not to say that you're cuter than her. You know what I mean? He's just, if he is still pursuing men of color as a central part of his strategy, I have not seen his messaging or his strategy shift to achieve that. As you look at the messages the Republicans are throwing out there about her, you know, and the ads are picking up, there's hundreds of million dollars being slated to be spent over the

next couple of weeks here. Are there any that worry you the most that we have to be the most attentive to pushing back on? You brought up the fact that there's some similarity and the enthusiasm between Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, right, and a part of the similarity here is both Barack Obama and Kamala Harris remind us of the American ideal, right? And this is what I think Tim Walz did in his introduction, was reminding us that a guy from Minnesota and a girl from Oakland can share values

and share a mission and pursue it together, that that's a part of what Barack Obama and Kamala Harris represented, right? As they represent this American idea that if we work hard and try hard and do our best, that we can achieve and contribute to this society in the highest ways possible. Well, in many ways, Donald Trump represents the other side of America. These are both truly who we are, the better and the worse parts of us. And so that is, I think that's the contrast that we have to continue to draw. And the ads that I am most concerned about are the ones that will make people question

who she fights for. It is the ads that will undermine who she is. And I think we have to be careful there because I don't ever want her to have to come on TV and describe why she's black or respond to Donald Trump's questions. I think it's enough for her to just be black and just be Asian American and just be a woman and just be a Howard 11, just be who she is.

What I've always thought the goal of the American experiment must be is to broaden our tribe, right? That we are still the same team just because we're wearing different jerseys. We're all the same tribe here. And so I think that is exactly what they represent is the diversity and the vastness of this tribe

and how different we can be, but how much more we have in common than apart. this tribe and how different we can be, but how much more we have in common than a part. I hope you enjoyed this best of episode from Polar Coaster. A brand new episode of the show is coming out this week. To get new episodes of Polar Coaster and much, much more, subscribe to the Friends of the Pod community at crooked.com slash friends, or sign up for Friends of the Pod on Apple podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. We'll see you with a brand new Pod Save America on Wednesday. If you want to get ad-free episodes,

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