The Daily Signal - #334: Divided Government Is Back

Episode Date: November 7, 2018

Why did conservative Marsha Blackburn triumph in the Tennessee senate race, and why did incumbent Rep. Dave Brat struggle in his race for a third term in the House? Tuesday's night results made clear that Republicans would retain the Senate, but lose the House, and we're here to examine what happened. Rachel del Guidice joins us from the ground on Tennessee, and Fred Lucas from Brat's Virginia district to share what they learned from voters and experts over the course of their reporting. Plus: We talk about how well celebrity endorsements panned out this cycle.We also cover these stories:--The election results were bad news for progressives, with major candidates like Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke losing to Republicans.--Did the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings have an effect on the races? The one Democrat senator who voted for Kavanaugh won re-election, while three Democrats who didn't lost their Senate races.--In Florida, voters approved an amendment to their state constitution that restores voting rights to some felons.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, November 7th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Well, the election results are in. We'll be breaking down some of the major outcomes, and we'll talk to two of our reporters who are on the road covering some closely watched races. We'll also take a look at how celebrity campaign efforts didn't help so much in this year's races. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines.

Well, divide a government. Here we come. Democrats gain control of the House, but Republicans maintain control of the Senate. President Trump tweeted, tremendous success tonight. Thank you to all. The president also called Representative Nancy Pelosi, according to her spokesman Drew Hamill. Hamill tweeted, President Trump called Leader Pelosi at 1145 p.m. this evening, very precise, to extend his congratulations on winning a Democratic House majority. He acknowledged the leader's call for bipartisan.

in her victory remarks, end quote. In general, while Democrats certainly made some gains, the night did fall short of the blue wave that some had predicted. Well, last night was especially bad for the left wing of the Democratic Party, with major candidates like Andrew Gillum and Beto O'Rourke losing to Republicans. Gillum lost his governor race in Florida to Ron DeSantis, a Republican congressman. Polls had shown Gillum leading DeSantis for months, only to be proved wrong. And in Texas, Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rour came closer than expected to knocking off Senator Ted Cruz, but it wasn't enough.

He lost by about three percentage points. But it wasn't all losses for progressives. Vermont handed Bernie Sanders another term in the Senate, and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the avowed socialist from New York City, who upset Joe Crowley in the primary this year, won herself a seat. She'll be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Well, during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, there was plenty of speculation about how Senate Democrats from red states who were up for re-election would vote. Ultimately, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democrat to vote for Kavanaugh, and as the results rolled in Tuesday night, it looked like Mansion might have picked the wiser course. Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Heidi Height Camp of North Dakota, all lost Republicans in their Senate races. while Manshan, he was re-elected for another term.

Well, in Florida, voters approved an amendment to their state constitution that restores voting rights to some felons. Amendment 4 restores the right to vote to convicted felons so long as they've completed their sentences, though convicted murderers and felony sex offenders are still excluded. The measure could restore voting rights to over one million people in the nation's largest swing state. Well, it's not just the Bush's and the Clintons with. multiple family members in politics anymore. Mike Pence's brother, Greg Pence, won a house seat in Indiana in the same district that his brother Mike used to hold. The vice president tweeted, congrats to my brother Greg Pence on being elected to serve in the U.S. Congress. Greg served our

country admirably in uniform and will do the same in Washington, D.C. I am so proud and look forward to working with him to advance Donald Trump's agenda for America and the Hoosier state. And in Utah, Mitt Romney was finally elected to federal office. Romney was roundly elected to the U.S. Senate, where he'll replace the retiring senator, Orrin Hatch. Romney served as governor of Massachusetts back in the mid-2000s. Next up, we're going to talk to Rachel Del Judas about what she observed on the ground in Tennessee. Liberals have pretty much cornered the market on 101-style podcasts that break down tough policy issues in the news.

Until now. Did you know that every week, Heritage Explains intermingles personal stories, news clips, and facts from heritage experts to help explain some of today's hardest issues from a conservative perspective? Look for Heritage Explains on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us is Rachel Del Judas, a reporter for The Daily Signal, and she's currently in Tennessee. In fact, she just went to the election party for now Senator. Marcia Blackburn. Oh, well, okay, she's got to be sworn in. But, you know, it's election night so we can jump ahead.

Rachel, how was the election party? It was very electric. There were so many people here, one of the ballrooms here, and Nashville was crowded with supporters for Marsha, and they had Lee Greenwood here, who was campaigning with President Trump earlier this week, also with Marsha here performing for folks. And then at the end of the night, just a few minutes ago, actually, Marsha came out on stage and it was very excited and thank supporters. And she said, not only am I going to be your first female, Senator from Tennessee, but I'm also going to be a conservative. And the room

was, like filled the room with folks. There are lots of women wearing a woman for blackburn stickers, lots of American flags waving. And you could tell the people of Tennessee were very proud and excited. Well, you know, this is a state that Democrats thought that they might be able to make a move and actually pick up. Clearly, that didn't happen. Rachel, you talked to a bunch of people there in Nashville. What were some of the issues that you sensed they cared most about in this election? Sure. Well, the number one issue, I would say, was immigration. Everyone I talked to said that they wanted to send Marsha to the Senate so that she would be able to work for President Donald Trump's immigration agenda and fill the border wall. And then you said, you know, we haven't seen

tons of illegal immigrants in Tennessee necessarily, but they said we've had a huge influx of MS-13, and they said they want to send her to the Senate so that she'll be able to work for President Trump's agenda, specifically a border wall. That was the number one issue. I would see secondary was tax reform. A lot of them, a few I talked to were small business owners, and they said that they'd seen improvements in their wages that they've been able to give their employees because of tax reform, and they wanted to send her to the Senate so that tax reform 2.0 that President Trump has been talking about could become a reality for more to the fans. So, of course, Rachel, you were just in the state today.

You know, you hadn't been covering this race before. Had, did people say stuff that surprised you? What did you learn by being on the ground? Yeah, well, it was interesting. A lot of the folks I talked to, they did have respect for her competitor, Phil Brattison, but they said that he, it was even. easy for him to be a moderate when he was a governor because that was more of an administrative role. But one woman in particular said, you know, he's easy for him to be administrative.

But going into the Senate, she said there's no way he would be able to basically chart his own course and vote more conservatively, especially with, you know, Chuck Schumer in the Senate. And they said that even though they do respect him as, you know, their former mayor and governor, they wanted to send Marcia to the Senate because they knew she would fight for President Trump's agenda. And that was another thing along with immigration that just kept resurfacing almost every single person I talked to said that they wanted to send Marsha to the Senate. Even if all of them, some people didn't completely agree with President Trump, but they said he's making progress. And we would rather see Marsha in the Senate who will fight for conservative principles than so Bretteson who may depart from the will of the people of Tennessee. Well, Rachel, I understand you also spoke to Ken Cuccinelli, the president of the Senate Conservatives Fund.

and former Virginia Attorney General. What did he have to say about this race and its importance? Well, he said that Marshall Blackburn has potential, if she follows through on what she's promised, to be one of the most conservative women in the U.S. Senate ever. And he said that he's hoping that she'll be able to encourage more moderate female senators, like Susan Collins and other senators to be more conservative, that they'll be able to band together and support presidents from the agenda

rather than breaking off. I know there's a lot of attention when Kavanaugh was confirmed between whether a few female senators like Susan Collins who would support the president's Supreme Court nominee. And many of them mentioned

Justice Kavanaugh now and saying that they voted for Marsha Blackburn for this very reason that more women in the Senate who are conservative or who say they're, you know, they might be conservative, but their name is, you know,

the Republican. They wanted to send her there so she'd be able to encourage her colleagues to vote for President Trump's agenda and potentially, depending on how many more terms the president gets and who retires from the Supreme Court and another Supreme Court justice. Okay. Last question, Rachel.

How much did Taylor Swift's endorsement come up? Actually, not once. Not once? No one discussed about the haters going to hate or sorry that's a couple years old. The endorsement, not a single person. So it goes to show you how much way, how. Hollywood and even the music industry. And I mean, Nashville, Tennessee is a city known for and built on its music and the talent of many people across this country, but Kate, not one single person

mentioned her endorsement. Well, I am stunned. Well, Rachel, you've been up a long time. Thanks so much for calling in and now go get some sleep. Thank you guys. Have a good night. And congrats to Tennessee for their first female senator. about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head, then subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a podcast breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Okay, now we're joined by Fred Lucas, our White House correspondent here at the Daily Signal, but he's actually in the Richmond, Virginia area tonight. As of this taping, we do not know the results in Representative Dave Bratt's district. It is very tight. It does not look good for Representative Bratt, however. Fred, you

were just at the election party. How, how is the mood there? Well, the election party, it was pretty upbeat when I got there. It was pretty mellowed out quite a bit around, roughly around 930, 10. She sort of flipped the lead. He, early on, Dave Bratt had like a 1% lead. It was very close. And she flipped it around. As of right now, she has a. 1.3% lead. The race is not over, but Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat in this race, has said that, has declared victory, got a victory speech. Dave Bratt hasn't spoken himself.

He never came out at all at any point during the night, which is interesting. He sent out a campaign aide, Phil Rapp, who addressed the crowd, said, we're confident of victory. We're going to do recanvassing tomorrow. It's just we're going into overtime. So this is one of those that was not expected. We didn't see a blue wave tonight particularly. I mean, the Democrats took the House, but it was a good night for House Democrats,

and this is one of those instances, it appears to be at least, in which a Democrat won a long-held Republican district. Yeah, certainly looks like that will be the case. but even if he managed to hang on, this was, as you mentioned, you know, this was a better showing for the Democrats than expected in this district. What happened here? I mean, Dave Bratt came out of nowhere two cycles ago back in 2014, defeated Eric Cantor, who at the time was the House majority leader, and that was a huge takedown. And now this, what's your read on that? Yeah, I guess you live by the upset. You die by the upset.

But this was, and I think you could also say something about his opponent, Dave Bratt's opponent's opponent, this election cycle. She sort of came out of nowhere in some sense that she was a first-time candidate. Never ran for office before. She had been a CIA official. So she had been in government, but not in the political realm. So this is something that was, I don't think anybody expected this race to be close. Some of the analysts I talked to in the Virginia area said that there have been changing demographics in this area.

But it was kind of under the radar just because up until 2014, Eric Cantor had been such a strong incumbent, sort of a believed to be unbeatable until he wasn't unbeatable. And then Dave Bratt was a more conservative guy. One of the political science professors I talked to that had been polling this race, had said that maybe in some ways Eric Cantor might have been better for this particular district and this particular brand of Republicans, sort of old line Republicans, as a whole. than Dave Brad. And that's because once you get into the general election,

things are a little bit different than maybe a primary. So you were speaking to people in the area throughout today. What did they say about this election and what were their observations? Well, yeah, I talked to one Virginia come with a university student who was very excited about Dave Bratt. He really likes his economics policies, and he thought he was going to win. He was disappointed. I talked to another guy, another brat supporter, who had been out today during the day with his Labrador retriever.

The lab was wearing a Dave Brat t-shirts. That's amazing. There was a lot of enthusiasm for both sides. I talked to one of the Spanberger supporters. orders I talked to, though. He simply said that he thought Bratt was too much of a Freedom Caucus member out there arguing about what's constitutional and what's not. And in this guy's opinion, he didn't like that. He thought that he wasn't bringing home the bacon enough for the district and was getting too involved in national fights. So that's, I guess,

one drawback to being a sort of national figure, which Dave Bratt became, certainly after beating Eric Cantor, he almost immediately was a giant killer in that fifth and sort of became an almost instant start. And there's a, I guess, a drawback to that of people feeling maybe he's not taking care of the local issues. Well, Fred, I understand there also was a libertarian factor in this race that may have split the vote. There was. And she has, Spanberger has actually.

increased her lead up to 1.3%, the libertarian got 1.2% as of right now. That's what 99% reporting. So at one point, it looks like the libertarian candidate might have been the margin of difference. It looks like now maybe she could have wanted just right outside that margin of difference. But still, I mean, yeah, the libertarian might have made some kind of difference in this. I mean, once we get this, once we'll get 100% of the precincts reporting. Okay. Well, thanks so much for joining us, Fred. Yeah, thanks for having me out.

On Saturday Night Live this weekend, comedian Pete Davidson made a rather awkward comment about Dan Crenshaw, a veteran who wears an eye patch due to an injury incurred during his service. this guy's kind of cool a Dan Crenshaw oh come on man you may be surprised to hear he's a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie

I'm sorry I know he lost his eye in war or whatever uh charming well Crenshaw has the last laugh he won his house race Tuesday and will be a member of Congress but that wasn't Hollywood's only involvement in the elections this year. Singer Taylor Swift endorsed the Democrat candidate in the

Senate race in Tennessee. However, Republican Marsha Blackburn won. Beyonce endorsed Beto O'Rourke, but Ted Cruz defeated him in that Senate race in Texas. So, Daniel, if you were a politician, would you want a celebrity to endorse you? That's a lot of ifs, but try to imagine it. I would not. And in fact, I read, you know, it's funny, I read reports that Beto O'Rourke was trying to keep Obama out of Texas because he knew that Obama's liberal celebrity coming in would not help him in Texas and of course he still lost but yeah I mean it just shows I think that celebrities

don't have as much sway as they think and we also saw it in Georgia you know where Oprah was there campaigning on the ground for Abrams who did not come out on top so Kelly says of this taping right right and the gap was pretty big so you know, I just think celebrities kind of, they have this idea that because they're celebrities somehow, they have some kind of unique insight or expertise into politics or they, that their voice should mean something more than the average citizen. And this is not true. And I think most Americans see through that.

Well, I think it's also interesting and maybe revealing about them. I mean, I will say, you know, Beyonce, of course, is originally from Texas. Taylor Swift, I believe, lives in Nashville. So, I mean, they did have some actual ties. to the communities where they were endorsing, which was somewhat refreshing. But, you know, I think I was actually listening to a true crime podcast. I like my favorite murder, where they talked about everyone should get out and vote, and they implied, are they already said?

Like, well, if you listen to this podcast, for sure you would vote the way we agree with. And I happen to know that the two podcasts hosts of that show are very liberal because whenever they talk about politics, they're very liberal. And it struck me sort of interesting that they would just sort of automatically assume that everyone who listens to them

and enjoys their podcast would also share their political beliefs. And, you know, I think this is just something that a lot of celebrities and a lot of people in the left that don't seem to get. Like, you can like someone on certain things, but not necessarily agree with them on politics. Right. I can think Taylor Swift is an amazing singer and entertainer. Right. And yet be like, I, girl, I just am not buying your argument on politics.

Right. Right. And to be fair, you can also, I mean, this applies to the Republicans, too. I mean, there are some celebrities who endorse Republicans. I mean, there was Bobby Knight, who was the big Indiana, the big basketball coach from Indiana. He was there stumping with Trump and with Mike Braun in Indiana who won. And then until recently you had Kanye who seemed like he was pro-Trump. And so people were like in a real conflict because, oh, if Kanye now likes Trump, that means, can I listen to any of his music. You see a politics corrupting everything in that sense. So I think they're, you know, we just need to take a step back and realize let's not allow politics to ruin our enjoyment of music and sports and this kind of thing. Well, I am excited to have my Instagram feed no longer filled with celebrities earnestly telling me that I need to vote. I was very sick of that, but I did vote. Well, we're going to leave it there for today. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google, Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or a rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis, sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.