The Chaser Report - Chas' Election Result Pre-Hindsights | PEP

Episode Date: November 3, 2024

Time to get PEPPY! On today's episode, we listen to an excerpt from Chas Licciardello's PEP podcast in which he outlines what the "conventional wisdom" will be when the US Presidential election results come in on Wednesday. LISTEN TO PEP HERE Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. It is just two days as you hear this until the US election results start flooding in on Wednesday afternoon. There's a lot to talk about. And so I thought today we would hand over the feed to two people who you've heard from often in the past few weeks. Associate Professor David Smith at the US Study Centre at the University of Sydney, who I've talked to quite a lot over the past few months

and the Chase's own Taz Lichidello of Planet America. We've referred a few times to their podcast, PEP that they do, the Planet Extra podcast, the massive behemoth of a podcast that they do. They've just done apparently a four and a half hour long episode. Now, my key tip with PEP is to go into the episode descriptions where you will find out a whole bunch of time codes you can, tap on the time, basically, and go to the particular point you're interested in. It's the best way to make sure you get to whatever you want to know about.

Unless you want to listen to the whole thing. But today we are listening to a quick clip from episode 186, where Chas speaks with Bill Wyman, who is a writer and journalism lecturer. And they talk about the potential, I guess, conventional wisdom we will hear, depending on what election result comes through. So it's a bit of a guide to decoding some of the spin and the conversation we'll hear on Wednesday as the results come through. A bit later this week, of course, we will talk more about the election on our podcast feed. We plan to check in with Dr. Emma Shortest, who's over in the US as well.

And of course, Charles and I will have plenty to dissect depending on what happens and just how cooey things get in the US. In the meantime, check this out. And don't forget, you can subscribe to PEP with Chaz and Dr. Dave wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get peppy. Welcome to PEP1.8. 6. That's Pepp or Planet Extra podcast. It's an option of Planet America on ABC Australia where you can see us on Wednesdays at 9.30 p.m. on ABC TV and 8 p.m on Fridays and ABC News, planet, America. Or on YouTube, on Pep, we cover all the stuff that's too 90 for TV. If you're listening to us, you can also find pep on YouTube and Facebook where you also find timestamps and show notes in the blurb. And if you leave a comment under those videos, we're likely to see it. You can also tweet this at P-E-P-C-H-H-A-S-D-A-V-E. That's at P-P-P-T-E. James. But for now, let's hear from the fellow who only raises the stakes in inconsequential

views when we bait him to. It's journalism teacher, the real Bill Wyman. Hello, Bill. Hi, Chas. How are you? I'm great. It's a crazy time. It really is. Are you frot? I'm a little bit fraught. I'm a little bit fraught, but I'm not fraught about the election. I'm fraught about the fact that I'm never prepared at the moment. Every show I make, I'm always days behind and have I read a couple of things. Yes, but somehow you make it look like you do know. And people should know the amount of work that goes into the shows that you guys put on is just extraordinary. I just imagine that getting ready for next week, we must be nervous making as well.

Well, yeah, honestly, this week's actually my toughest week because I've got two shows plus two podcasts. And I started the week two days behind my reading, which is, yeah, like, that's like 600 articles. And so, anyway, it's a bit of a nightmare. But, you know, I'll sleep when I'm dead. And that's going to be in about three weeks time. what you've done there is you've done one of my favorite things to do before an election. And I've done exactly the same thing. I'll give you the benefits of what I've been doing, which is what I call pre-hindsight.

To think, okay, what's going to be the hindsight? Oh, absolutely. In three weeks' time. Yeah. Because in three weeks' time, there's going to be a narrative. They go, well, we should have seen it coming. There was this obvious thing all along, which we didn't say. And now look at the exopoles.

It's really obvious. What's that going to be? And I like to think before the election what it's going to be. And I think about, because the truth is, there's usually more than one. There's usually 20 of them. They could be. We don't know which one it's going to be until we look at the exit polls. So what I've done is I've compiled my list.

And there's a bit of overlap with your list because, yeah, they're rational thoughts. Yeah. So this is my pre hindsight. Okay. So first I want to go through the ones that might be the hindsight if Harris pulls out a victory. Number one, the blue wall. People have been talking about Arizona and Georgia and North Carolina and Nevada till they're blue in the face and none of them matter.

From the last six months, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have always polled better than the other states the whole time, almost the entire time Harris has been ahead. Even now when she's at pretty much a low point for the last three months, she's still ahead in all three states in most polls. And one or two, she's down by like point one of a point. She hasn't been down by half a point, by more than half a point in any of those three states at any point in time from any respectable pollster. In fact, there is a decent chance that she could win the electoral college and lose the popular vote.

Right. That's another interesting thing. Yeah, because she's doing so much better in those three states than in any other state. Like the Democrats are being concentrating on those states, the whole time. And so that might be hindsight in the future going, if she wins just those three states and then ends up getting 270 electoral college votes, they'll go, we should have seen it coming the whole time those states have been stronger than the rest. So that's one. Next one, you've already mentioned the Republicans. And Nikki Haley voters, they've been there

the entire time. They've never gone away. They were there in the Republican primary. They were there long after Donald Trump sewed up the Republican primary. In every poll, they've been in the New York Times, Siena polls, 10% of Republicans not supporting Trump. They've been there the whole time. And if you look at the people, the defectors in 2020, it was 5%. It was 4% from each side. If one person has 10% defectors, they're going to lose. The Nikki Haley voters may well lose it for Trump.

As you say, Harris has been pitching them as hard as she possibly can. And he's helping her on the other side by alienating. Yeah, yeah. And she's been carrying Liz Cheney along like their Siamese twins. They've been trying to hit those voters as hard as they possibly can. So that might be hindsight as well as the Nikki Halley voters. Next one. Abortion.

Exactly the same thing happened in 2022, where we stopped talking about abortion with about a month to go in the election. And people go, oh, it's worn out. It's not polling so well anymore. It's like the fourth most important issue. And then, bang, abortion was everywhere after the election. It turned out to be an abortion election after all. It's just the women were a little bit quiet.

about it. And the same thing might happen again. It might be, bang. Outcome the white women who happen to be Kamala Harris's best demographic, also happen to be the biggest demographic in America. Like if they come out in force with like 85% turnout or something like that and just bang, they'll just wipe out everyone else. There's too many of them. So that might be something we might look back on in three weeks ago. Shit, it was an abortion election after all. Can I just make it? Another thing that we also got to remember is that a lot of people in any election they're really regular voters and they're they you know um they're not like not low information voter something but stuff happens they end up not being able to vote i mean just

threw up and even just these little impetus of stuff like that to oh my god i got to put that thing in the mail even one percent of women that's a half a percent of the voting block right yeah so yeah yeah and i might add by the way if this is the hindsight in looking back going shit it was an abortion election after all we might look back on that trump super pack trying to defend abortion with an ad with a week to go, this ad right here. I've never voted for Trump, but when he was president, life was a lot better. I trust him on the economy and on keeping us safe. Freedom to choose is also important to me, and there's been a lot of talk on where he stands.

But he's been clear. He does not support a federal abortion ban. I'm not signing a ban, and there's no reason to sign a ban. Trump does support reasonable exceptions for rape, incest, in the life of the mother. His position is my position, and that's why I'm with Trump. And we might go, wow, Trump saw it coming as well, or Trump's team saw it coming as well. The actual campaigners knew this was an abortion election, but we didn't. And we were too busy talking about fascism and talking about a bunch of other stuff.

Yeah. The next one, democracy. Maybe this happened in 2022 as well. It ended up being in much more of a democracy election than we thought it was going to be. We thought that was a real dud topic, and we wondered why they were going on so much. about it, why Biden was going on so much about that. It turned out to be a good idea. When you looked at the exit polls, democracy ended up being one of the biggest issues. Gallup put out their biggest issues of the election the other day, and but democracy was the second top

issue. 49% said it was extremely important, second only to the economy, which was on 52%, not much more. It might be a democracy election. They're certainly trying to make it a democracy election. And there was an ABC Ipsos poll the other day where 49% thought Trump was a fashion, If there's a fascist question in the exit polls and Trump goes off the dial and Harris ends up winning, that pill might go, oh, yeah, it was a democracy election. That's another potential one. Next one. Old people.

We all know they turn out in mass. We all know that the old people now are boomers. Like, they're not the same old people that they used to be. They could be really left. If the left win the old people, that's significant. That's never happened that I know of, at least for a long time. that could be significant as well. We might go, oh, why don't we stop facing the young people for a second?

And look at the old people who turn out twice as much as the young people do. So that might be the next bit of conventional wisdom. Trump's ceiling, the pill might go, Trump was never getting more than 47%. Trump never gets more than 47%. As soon as RFK pulled out and that meant the third party vote was only going to be two or three percent, it meant that Harris was going to end up with more votes. than Trump, because Trump doesn't get more than 47%. Now, he may have gained more than 47%.

But if he doesn't, that will be the conventional wisdom. Right, exactly. Yeah, people will go, oh, of course, he never got more than 47%. We should have seen that coming. Money, you've already mentioned that. Yeah, and the ground game there will combine $1.2 billion versus $400 million. That's quite a difference. And also that amount of money overseen by very, very serious people.

Absolutely. as opposed to being overseen by the Trump campaign. Absolutely. Polster's overcorrecting. We've been hearing over and over and again about pollsters desperately trying to find their hidden Trump voters. What if they've worked so hard to do this, they create some hidden Harris voters.

If the polls are wrong, we may look back on that in three weeks' time and gone, geez, those polls were trying so hard to find those Trumpers. They screwed up the wrong way. And that's why Harris won. Transgender ad campaign. Maybe it backfired in a big way. Because it's never been supported by polling.

You look at the polling that no one ever goes hard on the transgender issues. Even though on individual issues, they don't poll terribly well. When you ask people broadly about discrimination and about transgender people, they're not thrilled with these ads. They don't like them. And it might not only have not helped, it might have undermined Trump's message in the last month because they went so hard on that ad campaign. So those are my.

conventional wisdoms if Harris wins. Here's some conventional wisdoms if Trump wins. The administration was unpopular. What did you expect? Biden has a 40% approval rating. They've got a 28% right track rating. You're not going to win an election if 28% of the country thinks you're on the right track.

I'm sorry. So that's one conventional wisdom. Electoral college bias. We've known forever that there's a three point electoral college bias in the last decade or so. Carla Harris has never been ahead by more than three and a half points. And most of the time, she's been ahead by one and a half or two points. Surprise, surprise. She loses.

We saw that coming a mile away, they might say. Non-white voters. Democrats can't win without black and Hispanic voters. We all know that. They've been threatening a bolt for years. This time, they did. They lost just 10%. And that's enough to make the Democrats never be able to win an election.

And this is a corollary of Democrats. Losing the working class, because it's the working class blacks and working class Hispanics that they lost. The Democrats are going to have to cut their losses right here, or they'll be out for a decade. I'm just chilling. That happens every one. I was traveling the conventional wisdom if this happens. Low propensity voters. They're not counted in polls.

We know that because they're not likely voters. We always knew that Trump excelled in low propensity voters. Every single poll says that. NBC polling says those who voted in 2020 and 2022, Harris leads. 51 to 45. Those who voted only in 2020, Trump leads by 48 to 44. Those who voted in neither 2020 nor 2022, Trump leads them 50 to 40. If they show up to vote, they're going to blow the polls out of the water because none of them are counted in polls because none of them are likely voters. Right. Also, those who's interest in the election is nine or 10 out of 10, the race is tied.

For those who's interest in the election is 7 or 8 out of 10, Harris is up by 2 points. For those who's interest in the election is 1 point to 6 points out of 10, Trump's ahead by 16 points. If they show up, if any of them show up, that's going to make a difference. And he'll go, it was the low propensity voters. They're the ones that broke the polls. And finally, you mentioned that, but if Harris loses,

they're going to be talking about Gaza, especially if you loses Michigan, they're going to go, oh, there's always. is going to cost her in Michigan. There's at least 7,000 Americans abandoned in Lebanon at the moment who want to come home and are not coming home. The government's bullsded up. Listen to Rashida Talib. What a morning. We are up to 148 families, Americans that have ties to the 12th Congressional District, and one of them just broke our hearts this morning. Not because he's a veteran and served our country, but the fact that he broke down in tears saying, does my two purple hearts mean anything to my to have to call and beg our government, the United States, to get this veteran home.

They're making him leave his wife behind. They're like, we're not sure about your service dog. I mean, this is a man that served his country well, and he's now been abandoned in Lebanon. We need to do better. We knew this was coming, and we had no plan to get Americans out. In addition to about 9,000 Palestinian Americans, Michigan is also home to 82,000 Lebanese. Americans, what's happened for the last month? Lebanon versus Israel. The administration has a black eye over Gaza to begin with, and then throwing the Lebanese, of course they were going

to lose Michigan, the conventional wisdom might say. So that's my, that's all I've got, I've come up with. That's good. And I have one more is Pennsylvania. If she loses Pennsylvania by 5,000 votes, having not chosen Josh Shapiro. Yes, of course. How'd I forget that? You're right. That's a guarantee. No, that's a really great formulation. Yeah, I can't wait to see how that all happens.