The Chaser Report - Is America Ready For A Kamala-In-Chief? | David Smith

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

The Democratic National Convention is done and dusted in Chicago, and Assoc Prof David Smith of the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney is here with one of the quickest podcast responses in the world. He weighs in on how the nominee's coronation ceremony went, and whether it'll make much of a difference in the polls. Plus, will Donald Trump ever come up with a decent nickname for Kamala Harris, and what's the deal with RFK's brain worm?For even more – arguably too much – Dave alongside our own Chas Licciardello, check out their podcast, "PEP with Chas and Dr Dave". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. Well, the Democratic National Convention is over. Kamala Harris has spoken. What did she say and what did she reveal about the kind of president? She will be, did she make a convincing argument to become president and is Donald Trump essentially finished after her oratory? Well, David Smith is back here.

Associate Professor at the University of Sydney's US Studies Centre. Hello, David. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. A hundred thousand balloons apparently dropped at the, I think it's the United Center in Chicago. Yes. At the end of the speech.

But Beyonce didn't turn up. What was she thinking? Beyonce did not turn up. But if it's any consolation, Tim Walls just looked like he was having the time of his life with those balloons. I've never seen any man look more sincerely happy to be surrounded by falling balloons. You can't fake that, can you? A simple man.

Simple man from Nebraska who likes balloons. Yes, yeah. Whether it's falling balloons or hugging a piglet, Tim Walls is a man who appreciates the simple pleasures in life. More on the balloons in the speech after this. So this was a big moment. Now, we talked to Emma Shortest on yesterday's podcast about the speech that we've had so far.

Before we get to Kamala Harris herself, I'm going to get your sense just of what the Nirocats needed to do in this week. And in the star-started rollout of President's past, you know, and potentially emerging as well, who did you think did well and did they deliver on what they needed to do to try and put Donald Trump to bed forever? Well, the Obamas were the standout, and I think that to the extent that they wanted to recapture as much of the Obama 2008 atmosphere as possible this week, that was very important. And in general, I think that they did manage to

manage to bottle a bit of that, especially in those speeches. I thought Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez gave an outstanding speech, which affirms that she is one of the future presidential candidates of the party and really cements her status as the leader of the progressive wing of the party. Particularly because a few of them got disendorsed, from what I understand. Yeah, that's right. Two of them got defeated in primaries this time around. Joe Biden got to give what was essentially a farewell speech.

Wasn't it the longest speech of any in the whole? It was definitely the longest speech of the convention. It went for more than an hour. In contrast to Harris's speech today, which was a tight 35 minutes. But I think they had to give Biden that. They had to give him that to defend himself, to go out on his own terms. It was not the most scintillating speech, but he did look more alive than he has looked for years.

And it was late at night, right? It was very... The whole thing dragged on and... It was very late at night, but there were no slip-ups. It was reminiscent of Biden two or three years ago. Yeah. Not four years ago. That was a much better...

But I mean, maybe he did... Ironically, maybe he did just have jet lag and a cold in the debate because that was a whole other level. Oh, yeah, and his son had just been... convicted as well. That would have been a tough thing to, tough thing to struggle with. You wouldn't have slept. But the other thing that people point out is that that was him off the cuff rather than following prepared remarks. And I must say, we talk to remember about this, I don't know that a lot of people in the room were going, well, gosh, he was robbed before his time. He had four good

years ahead of him. Because I mean, yeah, he delivered the usual lines. But it really was just a remix of the same themes, democracies on the ballot, all this stuff that we heard. Indeed, in his last campaign, he didn't seem to have anything new for 2024. No, he didn't. I don't think anyone had any regrets seeing that speech about the way that he went out. So Tim Walls also gave a speech that was actually most notable for the reaction of his son, Gus Walls. And, you know, I feel there is a constantly expanding understanding of disability, which Biden himself really helped with four years ago in terms of stuttering.

Neurodiversity is one of the frontiers of expanding understandings of disability. And that was the neurodiversity moment, which I thought was very important. Oh, I missed that aspect of Gus Wals' story. Okay. Yeah, yeah. He has a nonverbal learning disability. Right, okay. Yes, yeah.

But gosh, the emotion on his face was written very, very, large indeed. Yes, yeah, absolutely. So I think that overall, the convention went about as well as they could have hoped for it to go. There were no notable mishaps. You know, there was a lot of fear of protests, but due to incredibly heavy security and policing, all of the protests were about half a mile away and were apparently not particularly big, I think, probably because protesters realized they weren't going to be able to get anywhere near the convention. Yeah, and the Chicago Police didn't brutalize anything at the time. No, no, no.

So disappointing for extremists on all sides. Admiral was straight. Yes. It was not 1968. And there was the Oprah appearance. The last time that she appeared at a convention was to endorse Barack Obama. So, yeah, I think the things went. about as well for them as they could have hoped for.

Yeah, with the Obama's and Ocasio-Cortez, for me being the outstanding speakers. Yeah, and I mean, Hillary Clinton certainly got to look back a bit nostalgically on and somewhat bitterly on her own journey. She said it was cathartic to get up and talk about that. And I guess the continuity between her and Kamala Harris is pretty considerable. But in terms of where they needed to go, it did feel as though, in a sense, almost as though Kamala Harris had always been the nominee in a strange way. It just feels as though it's kind of locked in now.

And the contrast seems far starker for whatever reason between Harris and Trump. And between Biden and Trump, it's not just the old white guy thing. But in terms of the messaging, it did feel as though the pitch from the Democrats was a lot sharper and the contrast was a lot greater than the Biden version of the argument might have been. One of the things that I was thinking during Harris's speech and during other parts of convention I saw was that it just met the standards of professionalism and discipline that we used to expect from politics. And okay, maybe that turns some people off because it's too sharp, it's too overproduced,

it's, you know, it's focus group to death, whatever. But it, I think it makes a refreshing change at this point from both the Biden and Trump versions of politics, which involves. a lot of rambling. Yes, they do. I mean, to be fair, the Biden speech was, as much as it was kind of cookie-cutter phrases

put together, there was an awful lot of them. Yeah. And not really very compelling. And I must say, I want to give credit, because I haven't done this on the podcast at the RNC,

the number of what-the-fuck moments during the court. The number of 80s wrestlers, and what on earth Hulk Hogan was doing at the RNC? Yeah. And the idea that would in any way assist anything, that any occasion would be better for Hulk Hogan and what's his name, Vince McMahon,

all appearing, and that Ken Kid Rock, like the three of them with this sort of 80s testosterone clad or 90s in Kid Rock Close, back-to-back, bizarre nostalgia. Yeah. I wouldn't have minded more of that at the DNC. Like, everyone seemed to have a point. Everyone spoke, well, I didn't see a bad speech at the DNC,

although I didn't see some of the endless lieutenant governments on night one. No, governors on night one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, look, I saw some speeches. I wasn't particularly impressed with. But, yeah, there was nothing disastrous. Sort of a pity in a way. There were no jaw-dropping moments.

I think Hunter Biden was, you know, it was a shame. He was off the bill. I think he could have done something interesting. No, but look, so they stage managed it very thoroughly. And again, quite amazing they pulled it together as quickly as they did. Because you can't tell me that that rundown is the same one that there would have been for Joe Biden. Well, no. The Clintons and Obama is, sure, maybe.

Yeah. But it was a pretty certainly diverse crowd. It was her name, Jasmine Crockett, the Texas congresswoman who I really enjoyed. She had some good hits on Donald Trump. Yeah. They, over the first couple of nights, there was a concern about a lack of Latino speakers. But over the last two nights, there were a lot of Latino speakers. And one of the things that was talked about a lot was leaning into the themes of freedom and patriotism.

So you couldn't escape the word freedom at the convention. That's what they have embraced as their positive message. And it's a good one. Even though freedom in recent decades has often been associated with right-wing messages, get the government out of everything except the bedroom. Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 with his Four Freedom's speech, really appropriated freedom for kind of left liberal causes. He said that there were these four fundamental freedoms in America, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want

and freedom from fear. So with those things, you have the embrace of personal freedom. You have the embrace of pluralism and diversity. You have the idea that the government needs to protect people in all kinds of ways and needs to provide for people who can't provide for themselves. And freedom is not just about freedom from. It's also about freedom too. This was the distinction that the philosopher Isaiah Berlin made about positive and negative freedom. Negative freedom or negative liberty tends to, we think of it as a set of issues that is owned by the right. But what Democrats do when they're most successful is to claw back both things. Interesting.

That they can be in favour of freedom from. They can be defenders of free speech and they've really refashioned abortion as a freedom from issue. Almost every speaker made this point. It was clearly very central to the strategy that was coming out, both the concept of freedom, the Beyonce song and all that kind of stuff, but also the link to abortion. They're clearly feeling this. This is strong territory.

I think every speaker that I saw made that link. Yeah. And I think this is something the Walls does particularly well when he talks about not wanting the government in your libraries, not wanting the government in your bedrooms. Yeah, it feels almost Republican that form of rhetoric. Keep the government out of whatever it is. Yes, it does. But then you marry it to and the government needs to provide things like meals for children

in schools. It needs to provide health insurance for everybody. These are the freedom twos. These are the things that enable people to live flourishing lives rather than actually surviving. So, I mean, in a sense, the great fault line of American politics is one that's been there for nearly 90 years now. It's are you for or against the New Deal. Yeah, isn't that funny? Yeah, and Democrats are most successful when they have a big New Deal program.

And I think that that is what they are trying to read. create, albeit with a very kind of updated flavour. I think that Harris has been very conscious from the beginning that she needed a positive message to sell. That it couldn't just be an anti-Trump

message. They've got plenty of anti-Trump stuff in there. And in Harris's speech tonight, there were some pretty heavy doses of it. But they did need you know, they needed positive slogans as well. They settled on freedom. I that's a good one. And there was a lot of patriotic imagery, patriotic language, lots of

flag waving, you know, going on. A message of hope and affirmation of the country in stark contrast to what Trump does every time he's out of office, which is to talk about the United States as this country that is going to hell that is, you know, that's turning into the worst country on earth. So there you go. Just, I don't know that you've seen the story. David, it only broke a short while ago, but in terms of freedom in the Beyonce song, have you seen this, Stephen Chung, the Trump campaign spokesperson, apparently put the music under a video, 13-second video of Donald Trump descending from a plane. Why, we don't know, but we do know that Beyonce's people immediately got onto an issue

to take down order and he had to take the whole thing down. I don't know what that plan was, if it was some sort of witty repost to the DNC. I don't know. First of all, I'll say over eight years, various iterations of the Trump campaign have become incredibly familiar with takedown notices. Yes. From musicians. No one wants Trump. I think Kid Rock is the only one who doesn't issue takedown notices. Isn't Kid Rock the only? I remember making a list in the book that I wrote, Trumpedia about Donald Trump, but the artists who played at his inauguration. Three doors down. Three doors down, I remember. And I think Kid Rock, it was, it really was the sort of absolute Nundi. year of kind of 90s, kind of mainstream-funded alternative rock. Yeah, three doors down, certainly.

Is it Kryptonite? Yes. Yeah, which is not a great image. No. All right. So, yeah, look, we can talk about Donald Trump shortly and how he's responded. The point's been made that he still hasn't got a good nickname. So until he managed to come up with a nickname, it's got his one trick.

And he's working names with his audiences. Yeah. Yeah. Still hasn't said it on one. In a moment, let's talk about Kamala, as speech and how it all went down. And I guess the pitch she's trying to make the positive pitch to be elected. Yes.

Now, David, one of the interesting points just responding to what you said before that Ezra Klein made, I think, in the New York Times, is that Joe Biden's whole pitch on Trump, which worked so well last time, was to heighten the fear of him and to build him up as a threat. And both candidates were very happy last time around when they were talking about Donald Trump. Joe Biden thought it helped him. Trump thought it helped him.

This time, clearly that it wasn't cutting through. through that Trump was a threat, it wasn't front of mind. And so Kamala Harris has clearly realized that a whole new approach was needed. Yes. And that she needed a positive framework. Now, I feel as though almost nothing had been revealed in terms of what she might do as president thus far in the campaign. And she probably didn't know, given that her job for the past four years been to do whatever Joe Biden thinks is a good idea as VP. But some aspects of what she wanted to pass, there were commitments and pledges that she made on the stage in Chicago. and a pitch to the American people for the positive things the Harris presidency would do.

What grabbed you about her pitch? Well, I think the most memorable aspects of her speech were not actually the policy pitch. It was the biographical stuff. Yeah, yeah. Saying that, you know, she wanted to become a prosecutor because of the experience that her best friend had of being unsafe in her own home, being assaulted by her stepfather. That was really quite confronting. I hadn't heard that story.

Yeah, that was very powerful stuff. I thought quite a notable thing was, even though, I mean, she talked about her mother's story and her father's story. She didn't really talk that much about her personal identity. She didn't do the things that both Obama and Clinton had done of leaning into the firstness of it. Yeah, she doesn't tend to do that, don't you? There are plenty of other people doing that for her. There's, you know, no one's going to not realize that. Instead, she, you know, she talked about in very classically American terms, the positive immigrant experience.

You don't complain about things. You change them. You get things done. She talked about, she described herself as a child of the middle class, but also talked about growing up in a working class neighborhood in the Bay Area. So quite deftly, deftly straddling the sort of dual class identification that many Americans like to have. I'm proudly working class, but I'm also middle class because middle class is good. I think she's getting California is electoral votes. Oh, yes, yes, absolutely.

Just on a side note, if there's ever a danger of someone running up the popular vote and not winning the electoral college, it's Harris. because the California vote makes it pretty likely at this point that she's going to win the popular vote. I just assume now that Democrats always will. Armist is a sort of, I mean, it was only Bush 2004, right? Like in the middle of a war. Otherwise, you just assume Democrats are actually going to get the most votes.

Not that it matters in the brilliant American system. Yeah, I mean, there is a long way to go and a lot of things could happen. But if the election was held tomorrow, I'd be pretty confident she would win the popular vote by quite a margin. Which will do her no favours. Just ask Hillary Clinton. Yeah. She didn't – so her policy pitch on the economy is we'll create an opportunity economy. One of the most interesting things about that, though, was she's really developed this line of attack against Trump describing his tariffs.

She didn't mention the word tariffs, but this is what she's talking about as a national sales tax. Yeah, that jumped out at me. And a few people have talked about this recently, just how radical an idea that it is, that every import has 10% put on it. and what that would do to inflation. Yeah, yeah. And what that would do to the much vaunted middle class. Yeah, and she's worked out that this is a really effective line of attack, given cost of living is one of the real drags on both her and Biden of the last four years.

So it's an issue she has to take head on. The proposal, the main proposal that she has is to create anti-price gouging legislation. So far, that's been suggested in very vague terms. We don't know what it looks like. So, you know, Trump and people on the right have interpreted this as Venezuelan-style price controls. But we can all agree gouging's bad. It sounds bad. It's gouging. But then, yeah, then on the other hand, you've got people like Paul Krugman saying, oh, no, this is just an extension of the kind of laws that Texas already has on the book.

We really don't know what that is going to look like. But the pitches keep costs of living down. She talked a lot about her housing plan. Or she didn't actually talk a lot about it, but she mentioned that she has a housing plan. It's always good to mention you have a plan to say what it is. Yeah. Yeah. So, and it's actually one that would be familiar to us in Australia. It involves payments to first home buyers. Yeah. Yeah, she talked about making capital available to small business. It was, in many ways, your classic liberal picture of, hey, we can all work together to make a better economy. Yeah,

look, if you really want to fix housing affordability, the Australian model is the way to go. Absolutely. Yeah. Everything we've done has. has worked so well. And look, I raised with Emma yesterday. I think you told me this, the notion that Harris has been able to campaign as a generic Democrat to agree that she's just able to, you know, if you like Democrats at all, you'll probably like what she's offering.

But one of the biggest challenges that she had to confront today, and it's had to throughout the campaign, is what to do about Israel, Gaza, right? And she really was very emphatic on this. And it's a line that isn't used that. often, but it doesn't involve all that much cognitive dissonance to my mind to say, well, both these things are wrong. Like we need Israel to defend themselves completely, but also a lot of people have been

killed in Gaza, and that is not good. I mean, both those things are fairly easy to defend at this point, aren't they? Not to go too much down memory lane, but do you remember, like, in our university debating days, everyone believed in a two-state solution? That was just the one-word answer to any. Yeah, yeah, that just seemed like the logical, obvious answer. Yeah. It's not actually that hard to thread this needle.

Just actually, yes, give them both territory, keep them safe from each other. But, of course, we haven't had a true two-state solution. No, no, we haven't. But, yeah, all civilian death is bad. There are 8 million people on both sides of that conflict. The fantasy that one side might just go away is, completely untenable and it's a recipe for murder if you want to, you know, if you want to actually enact it.

And there's been enough murder, frankly. There has been enough murder. So it shouldn't be that hard to thread this needle. And I thought that she did it very deftly. I think that her position is a great improvement on Biden's. Which has really been pro-Israel than the other stuff has been a little bit vague, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, look, I thought she did that well. I think Democrats are still going to lose some votes on this. Yeah. There, you know, there's, there have been calls for an arms embargo on Israel. They're not going to do that. This is going to cost them votes. From the left. Yeah, yeah, from the left. Actually, one of the interesting things from Biden's speech was when he said, those protesters outside, they've got a point. Too many people are dying. which is the first time I've really heard. Wow, that's actually, yeah. He was awake that night, as you were saying.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, I thought that, I thought she did that reasonably well. Well, this is what, I guess, the sort of meta, sort of purpose of the speech. It's not just the words, it's how you say them. Yes. And in particular, the question of sounding presidential. And I must say, I thought her oratory was quite remarkable. having heard her a few times before, but the challenge of filling the room and of sounding

in her most strident moments like a commander-in-chief. Yes. Baring in mind, I mean, all the stuff about being the first, but not just the stuff about her background, but also the fact that she's a woman being potentially the commander-in-chief of the military in a way that sort of defies traditional sexist logic. To me, I mean, when she was talking tough about dictators, it did sound to me as though she certainly rhetorically, at least, seemed presidential, whatever that even means. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, there are different ways of doing speechmaking. Yeah. She doesn't have the poetry of the Obama speeches. No. Not every speech needs that. And that is not her background. There are very few poetic prosecutors out there. She sounded authoritative.

She really did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. And the fact that from the moment Biden dropped out, she's been so in control of the whole situation. Surprisingly so. Yeah. I think that's a very appealing thing to Democrats because there's, you know, there's a real sense that Biden was just not in control. And it could also be appealing to undecided voters who look at Trump as somebody who's got self-control problems.

Just a bit. Yeah. And it used to be a conservative principle that if you can't govern yourself, you can't govern anybody else. Not. Well, there's a lot of conservative principles that don't hold anymore. But it's certainly true. I mean, he has been provided with a whole bunch of attack lines. Yes. And we're even at the point now where he says, I'm supposed to be talking about this. This is what my argument's supposed to be. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to be said ramble on about crowd sizes or whatever attacker or call it crazy, whatever it might be.

Yes. But the thing is, it doesn't seem to be cutting through David. Certainly the numbers, and we can talk about the numbers briefly before, we let you go off to your other podcast recording. By the way, he's just after this, he's going to go and do his three hours with Chaz on PEP. That's right. So it's a big day of podcasting for David. But look, he hasn't been able to land an attack yet that's really been comprehensive in a way,

which is unusual for Trump. He hasn't come across an enemy before, a opponent before that he's had such a lack of focus against it. With Hillary Clinton, it was a lot easier for him to land punches. Yeah, it usually comes up with something. Yeah, yeah. And he's had three years to think about this with Harris. Harris being the opponent rather than Biden in 2024 was hardly an unknown scenario.

That's a coup. It's a fraud. It shouldn't be allowed. I mean, the point where you're saying that is pretty desperate, isn't it? Yeah. I think that for a while I thought, Laughing Kamala was going to be the line of attack. Like, a woman enjoying herself, oh, you don't want that.

You don't want that. Tim Walz has turned that around. As he has with so many other things, he seems to be just brilliant for this moment. He never laughs. It just turns around. That's not laughing is good, isn't it? Anyway, so he's still trying to work out what to do. The prospect of debates in a couple of weeks time, I think it's the next moment.

The next piece on the 10th. the September at this stage. Yes. I mean, given how in control she seems to be, given her performance in the Senate in those judiciary committee hearings where she became famous, this could be a fascinating debate. It could. So the biggest pitfall for Harris now is that expectations are going to be so high.

Yeah. For this debate, which is it's a problem in itself. From Trump's point of view, to the extent that he's, you know, thinking about this. I think what he's probably remembering is 2016, when there were constant headlines about Trump failing to maintain discipline, failing to listen to anybody, being behind in the polls and not being able to do anything to get back. And then somehow it worked. I'm sure that's what he's thinking. A lot of speakers. I mean, Obama, you could see on his face, he was going, don't be complacent. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. I think that there, I don't think

anyone would be complacent at this point. But I'm thinking that is, that's what Trump is betting on. And let's just forget about 2020. Yeah. Because that, that entire year almost never gets mentioned in Republican discourse. And 2018 and 2020. In fact, the last three times when his side is lost. That's, that's right. Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's 2016 that is on everyone's brain and will be on everyone's brain until the day that Trump, by whatever means, actually leaves politics. But the thing is Hillary Clinton, and it's hard to remember this. I mean, she's in many ways, certainly in liberal world, a much-loved figure. Yeah.

But she had such baggage. There were so many people in America simply didn't trust her. Yeah. And she had all of the scandal. And, I mean, even though Bill's personal life is hardly fair to charge her with that. But it did seem as though the Clintons had a bit of. of a people were sick of them as well. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Harris is so unknown, despite having been vice president. But as you said, she's been sort of off to one side. It is nevertheless, she has that Obama-esque, she's sort of a new figure. Yes. There's not any scandal. No. No. And she comes across as really young at age 60.

The fact that she's six months younger than Tim Walz is an extraordinary figure. All right, well, before we let you go off to Chaz David, the last thing on us, you about is the polls, and you'll read on them. It seems as though things are trending in a positive direction. There are certainly headlines about swing states moving towards Harris, but it is certainly, even if she is in the lead, it's a fragile lead and an early lead. What are the numbers telling you in the polls? So let's talk about the national polls first. Yeah. There are six different poll averages that I'm following at the moment. I'm glad to hear it. The Washington Post has Harris up by

one. Real clear politics has Harris up by one and a half. New York Times has Harris up by two. Nate Silver has Harris up by 2.5. The Hill has Harris up by 2.6. And 538 now without Nate Silver has her up by 3.6. Without notes, by the way, listeners, that was on top of his head. I have done the calculation. That amounts to an average of averages of 2.1 666 recurring. The Smith average of averages. That's right. You heard it here first. That's, yeah, and on PEP probably. Due to the magic of the Central Limits theorem, that's the number I'm going to go. Basically, I would say, in the national polls, Harris is up by two.

I don't know what that theorem means, to listen to PEP and he might explain it more detail. Yes. Now, with the state polls, there still, I would say, isn't really enough high quality polling data to get a very clear picture. I think there is quite a clear picture at the national level. With the state polls, it's much harder to tell. And especially in the really important states, it's a bit all over the place. Pennsylvania, you'll constantly see there's some poll that has Harris up by one, but then there's another one that's got Trump up by one.

There was a New York Times Siena poll, which is considered a gold standard poll that had Harris up by four there as well as in Michigan and Wisconsin. That was their headline. Yeah, there was a fairly small sample, though. 667 voters, which is, I mean, it means that the margin of error is. quite big. So really, I think we're, all that you can say, if you, if you're one of the campaigns in that state, all of you, all that you could say is it's anyone's race. I think she does seem to have clearer leads in, uh, in Michigan and Wisconsin. The Sunbelt states, though,

are also at this point all up in the air. I'd say Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia. Georgia seems to be a little bit more reliable for Trump at the moment, but not, not universally so. Now, There has been some encouraging polling for Democrats in Florida. Really? One poll showed Harris within five a Suffolk University poll. Another from Florida Atlantic showed her within two. This is Donald Trump's home state. They can't do it to him.

But before Democrats get too excited about that, polls out of Virginia have shown a far closer race than Democrats would like. Oh, okay. Because one from, I can't remember the university. but good, good university that showed a three-point race, which is a lot, lot closer than than Democrats would want. So things were going all Donald Trump's way before Joe Biden left. Things seem to be going all Kamala Harris's way since her VP pick is going excellently well.

Jaddy Vance is still a huge liability. And it seems as though by just by being on the ticket, Kamala Harris has opened up the whole sunbelt path as well as the sort of northeast. And so there are a couple of, she wins either of those, if I think it's likely, she'll take out the race. But even though there's a sense of momentum and the DNC has gone incredibly well, really, it's still far from in the bag. It is still far from in the bag. And two other important things to keep in mind are the 2020 poll miss was even bigger than the 2016. Yeah.

Poll miss. That was, wasn't it? Yeah. And it just wouldn't be surprising if that happened again. No matter how much pollsters can wait for demographic factors. You can't really wait for the factor of people who answer polls in the first place are probably people with more trust in political institutions and maybe your institutions who are more likely to, you know, to vote for someone like Harris.

So that could, that response bias could be repeated again. You just see from the conventional system. Yes, yeah. Yeah. The second thing is that over the last month or so, it's become increasingly clear that Robert F. Kennedy was a drain on Trump's votes. I was going to ask you about that. Where I would say on average, if you compare head-to-head polls and then the same polls

with other candidates included, Trump was losing about a point when you included Kennedy. Now, there are some very loud rumors that Kennedy is going to drop out tomorrow. That's Friday US time. Yeah. And that he might endorse Trump. In fact, they're not even rumors at this point. He has actually withdrawn. He's applied to withdraw from the ballot in Arizona.

He's giving a speech in Arizona tomorrow. That is widely expected to be a dropout speech. His vice presidential candidate suggested in a radio interview earlier this week that they would be open to endorsing Trump. Whether they'll get anything out of that, I don't know. Kennedy had wanted a cabinet position earlier on. From either of them, right? Yeah, yeah.

And when he first approached Trump with this deal, Trump was so far ahead that, you know, there was no need for him to take it. So I don't know if there's a deal going on now or whether Kennedy's just realized that it's unviable, which will be a disappointment to lovers of dead animal pranks everywhere. Yeah, and brainworm fans. I think we'll feel that one. But this is something that could add about a point to Trump's prospects across the board. So we'll make it an even closer race.

it already is. If there's one thing that in this very murky sort of almost coin toss picture, there's one thing that Democrats can be optimistic about, I'm fairly sure they've got the better on the ground campaign. They usually do. Yeah, they usually do. I don't think it's going to be an exception this year, especially with Harris rather than Biden on the ticket.

They seem a lot better organized. There's a lot of excitement and motivation. There is a lot of excitement. Whereas before, when you looked at people who said that they were excited about the election, it was literally only Trump supporters who said that they were excited. Now you've got equal numbers of Democrats. Trump has also been outsourcing a lot of his Get Out the Vote campaign to organizations that have a lot of money and are very supportive of him, but don't have a lot of experience in campaigns, people like Turning Point USA.

Yeah. That could prove to be a decision that they regret. Interesting. All right. Well, it is bizarre to have RFK Jr. Looking at a set of data and drawing a correct conclusion. So good on him for doing that. And look, I guess not hugely.

The whole argument was who was he going to hurt more between being a Kennedy and hurting the Democrats and being a libertarian and taking votes from Trump. So we'll see what happens with him in the next couple of days. But look, the Democrats seem to have the wind behind their backs, a lot of excitement on the ground. Maybe Beyonce will come to a future event if she didn't turn up to this one. But, I mean, yeah, as bizarre as it may seem from an Australian perspective, given how badly Trump is going, yeah, I mean, Hillary Clinton will tell you, never rule him out. It is a very close race. All right, David, we'll let you go off to Chaz.

Give him our regards. I will. And I hope you emerge safely on the other side. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Algarious from Road, we're part of the Iconiclass Network. We'll catch you next time.