The Dispatch Podcast - Bipartisan Food Truck Conversation

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

Mo Elleithee, a longtime Democratic operative and executive director of the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service, joins Sarah and Chris Stirewalt to break down the results of the latest GU Battleground Poll. They talk about the implications of voters’ concerns about division, the nuanced differences between attitudinal and issue polling, and how the parties’ messaging on issues they respectively “own” are shaping political dynamics heading into the midterms. Show Notes: -GU Battleground Poll -Chris’ column on junk poling -This week’s Sweep on polling and primaries Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isgir, joined this week by Chris Steyerwalt, and we are talking to Mo Alethy. He is the founding executive director of Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service, the first institute of its kind in the nation's capital they boast. Before that, he worked at the top levels of communications for the Democratic Party, communications director and chief spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, which is where I met Mo when we would meet up at the food trucks that are halfway in between the R&C and the DNC, and Mo and I forged a friendship based largely on French fries, I would say. Casso, French fries. I miss those fries. Yeah, those were the good days, the good days of

food trucks and the good days of bipartisan food truck conversation. Let's dive in. Mo, we're thrilled to have you here. It's, I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. So this week, Georgetown released its politics battleground poll. Tell us some top lines. What did you find most interesting?

Yeah, so the battleground poll has a long story history. It's been around this month. It's celebrating its 30th anniversary. And what makes it unique is it's conducted by a Republican pollster, Ed Goaz, and Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. And they pull together and then write their separate analyses. We've been the home of it for the past couple of years. And when it moved into our shop, we added a new component that we call the civility

poll. We like to sort of wanting to get a sense as to how bad is the polarization in America, how bad Do voters think it is? Who do they blame? Do they really want it? Civility, right? And so we've been tracking that for the past couple of years. And this most recent poll was really interesting. What we found was that for the first time in our polling, the issue of division has surged into the lead as the most important issue on the minds of voters. Or a full third of voters, it's a plurality, a full third of voters rank it as either their top or their second biggest concern. And what's interesting to me is that cuts across all lines, Democrats and Republicans,

men and women, black and white. Generally, people are frustrated by the political division to the point where it has moved ahead in sort of the issues ranking over the past year ahead of the economy, ahead of COVID, ahead of government spending, and a whole host of other issues. So that was number one. Number two, how much do people really truly want to get past the division? We always ask this question. And they always say they absolutely want to get past the division, right? 90% of people say, sure, I would like there to be more civility and less division in politics. As long as everyone agrees with me. Well, and that's what's interesting. We have asked the question a number of different ways. One of my favorite ways that we've asked a question

in the past was agree or disagree with the following statements. Number one, common ground and compromise or noble goals I want my leaders to aspire to. 87% of people say they agree with that. Agree or disagree with this. I am tired of leaders who compromise on my values. I want them to stand up and fight the other side. 84% say they agree with that. It's as if people have been saying, I totally want common ground. Just see where I'm standing, come over here, and then we'll be on common ground. That's right. People need to compromise.

They need to compromise by which I mean those idiots need to give up their ideas and come agree with me. And it's complicated. That's complicated for a political leader. That's a complicated line for a political leader to walk, right? What's the incentive structure? So in this most recent poll, we tried to figure out what the incentive structure was. And we asked the question a little bit differently. if you have a choice between a politician who is willing to compromise and work across the aisle

in order to get results, even if that means compromising on my values sometimes, versus a politician who never compromises on my values, fights a good fight all the time, even if that means we don't always get results, which do you prefer? And overwhelmingly, people chose the former. overwhelmingly people were saying, results are more important to me than ideological purity. Now, start to ask them about specific issues, and it gets more complicated. We did some focus groups on this recently. And people said the same thing in the focus groups, but then we started asking them,

okay, are there any issues that are hard and fast, no compromise, and you always get some. So none of this is clean. But we are seeing that results, however people define it, results are the most important thing for them right now. And that what they are incredibly frustrated with is the division in Washington that is preventing results from taking place. There's lots of other interesting nuggets in there. Beyond that, we are incredibly polarized, can't find a lot to agree on.

and people generally blame one party for the division more than the other. Democrats in Congress have an edge when asked who do you think is better suited to get past the division? Republicans can maintain an edge on issues like the economy, smaller, though, than you'd expect. But Democrats are seen as having an edge on bringing the country together. Congressional Democrats have a much higher approval rating than congressional Republicans, including amongst Republicans themselves, Republicans, do not view their party leadership in Washington very highly right now. And lots of other interesting nuggets. But the fact that divisions has surged into sort of the top spot over the past several months was very noteworthy, we thought.

So, Mo, I went on an issue polling rant in our last podcast where I, explained that issue polling by and large is pretty meaningless to me because it's never verifiable. With elections, you're asking a tangible question. Who are you going to vote for? Then on election day, we find out who you voted for and we can judge the poll. On issue polling, you always have to ask this sort of theoretical feelings question. And people contain multitudes. It matters incredibly how you phrase the question. It matters what hour of the day you ask the question. And it matters in the sense that like people only get to vote on those things for a person because we live in a republic. So also they're not really ever able to actionify that polling question. But I had a

caveat, which is when you're asking the same question over time, you can look at the Delta and say that there is something happening if there's been a change. So I want with that in mind for you to persuade me that this poll, that I should put stock in this poll? Yeah, I think I generally actually agree with you. I think with some caveats as well. What I like about the polling that we do and the way that Ed and Salinda do it is it is all about tracking over time. It's about identifying trends. And even when I worked in the partisan trenches, I always ignored the least important question to me on a poll. is the horse race question, right?

The least important question is the one to me was whatever the question everybody was looking at in the public. I cared about the trends. And I think the fact that you can see the trends, one of the things, for example, that is really interesting to me is we ask in this poll, for example, trying to get a sense as to how bad people think division is,

to rank on a scale of zero to 100, the level of division, zero being no division, 100 being edge of civil war. And over the past two years, we've watched that number steadily increase to the point where the last time we were in the field before this most recent poll was the first week of January, right, right before the insurrection. And we saw that number reach an all-time high, right? In the mid-to-high 70s was the mean response that people thought we were three-quarters of the way

to the Civil War. Like, that's an important trend line to watch. And so I agree with you. Following the trends can tell you a lot about the mood of the country and shifting attitudes in the country, much more so than sort of one-off question about a particular issue. But it has been helpful, right? You've seen over the, you saw, for example, in the run up to the 2018 midterms, Democrats kept looking at polling that was showing the elevated importance of health care as an issue. And so all the congressional Democrats out there running were running on health care, and they had a good year. So they can be helpful in shaping the narrative for candidates and campaigns, and they can be helpful for the rest of us in analyzing the mood of the country. but I do think you're right

that looking out through the prism of shifts and trend lines is really the only one of the most important functions of polls like these. All right, let's get Steyerwald into here because I mean, Steyerwald, this was your job. What was my job?

Talking to Mo? Of course. This is, I'm well-versed, well-experienced. Well, I guess, I mean, as you know, this is what I wrote about for my column this week, and you very generously cited it. You were my inspiration, as you always are, friends.

Issue polling is valuable and important. And for both people who are trying to win elections and for people who want to know what their countrymen and country women are feeling and thinking. If you care about the country, issue polling of the kind that Pew does and the Knight Foundation does, people that take longitudinal surveys, the University of Michigan and that they do at Harvard, and indeed polls like the one that Ed and Salinda do, which is, of course, the poll model we used at Fox. It's the poll model from the Wall Street Journal, which is the right thing. You get an R&AD and you have them test each other's assumptions, and you get better questions and better stuff.

So if you do it right, you can really find out a lot. But doing it wrong is cheap and easy, right? So the Mo, what I wrote about was how people kept saying, you know, 69% approve HR1, 69% approval for House Resolution 1. The For the People Act is wildly supportive, including more than half of Republicans. I was like, that's not true. That's definitely not true. And then you go lift the hood on data for progress as poll. And the question is like, if there was a poll that gave a fluffy bunny and a chicky, and marshmallow cream pies to everybody for all time to make everyone happy and good.

It literally says like control, dark money, and jerrymen, like this amazing bill of things. And they even use trigger words for Republicans, election, safety, security. So they put everything in there. And the only thing that they say the people object to it is a federalistic argument that it's a state's right issue. And that's like two words. Well, if you put that out in an online poll, boo, all online poll, if you put that out in an all online poll and you phrase the question that way for what do you, I mean, how many people in America really know what that that act is? Let's be generous and say 40% of Americans. And that would be high. But let's say some idea that such legislation as this existed that may be close to half of Americans. I think that's high. But let's say that was so. If it's over 15%, I will buy you a very expensive bottle of scotch. And it would depend on how you asked it, right?

It would depend on, I think there's probably more than 15% of people who have an idea that this debate is going on. But for at least half of the people or more than half of the people, you're telling them what it is. And if you're telling them what it is, so I guess what Mo is doing, what this poll is doing is attitudinal polling. And that's really valuable. issue polling like do you support this piece of legislation or do you support that piece of legislation is next to impossible because there are so few issues that break through like and you can definitely do it on immigration and you can definitely do it on national security issues and you can definitely do it on things that have broken through on everything else I think

it's a lot of flummery no I think that's exactly right I think a lot of people do polling badly and I think a lot of people analyze polling badly which encourages more people to poll badly And I think that's part of the problem. But the last point you made there, Chris, I'm totally on board with. It's the attitudinal stuff that's really important to me because that's where you can start to get a sense as to what people actually think. And sometimes it's asking less is more, right? Which party do you trust more on immigration?

Right? Let's not define it. Let's not define what each side is doing. Just which part, like, and suddenly you get a sense as to where the country is, right? where their perceptions are of the parties. I was surprised by, in addition to the stuff that you talked about with the numbers dropping on the Civil War stuff and the, the comity scale for politics, I was surprised by the durability. And as you point out, the Republican advantages are small on taxes and small on job growth, but there's still advantages. And the degree to which the parties, after this insane Mr. Toad's wild ride that the country has just been on for the past.

Well, really, since 2008, but definitely in the last five years, that the lanes are still there, right? You have the Republicans that are favored on economic issues and you have Democrats that are favored on social issues. Yes, but, and where I think the polling can be illustrative, not predictive, but illustrative, is the degrees, right, on each of these things. So, for example, Republicans have historically maintained an edge on core economic issues. They still do. But they hold a three or four point margin in what was once an issue they used to hold a 10 point margin. Add to that the fact that the Democratic margin on the issues they historically have fared

well in has actually widened. Now add to the fact that the polling is when you ask people to rate the issues, in terms of what is actually going to motivate them. What do they actually truly care about? It's the issues that Democrats have more of an advantage on, generally that rate higher right now. Not entirely. Number two, biggest issue was government spending,

and Republicans maintain an edge on that. But number three, bunched right in there, is voting rights. And Democrats have a very strong advantage on that. So you start to see how, you know, Republicans actually could be in a tougher spot than people think heading into the midterms today, as of right now, because where they should have a bigger edge, as of right now, they have a smaller one, and the issues that are motivating people are the ones that favor

Democrats. That is what we are going to be watching in the coming weeks and the coming months to see if that trend line continues. Or if things do start to revert back to form as more and more distance between sort of Donald Trump and voters' minds, if that distance ever occurs. I think there's no doubt that if this were the story of the electorate and the issue set going into fall of next year, it would the Democrats would so I guess the way I look at it is the Democrats are more likely than not

to lose the House and the Senate not by a huge margin and I mean that both in how many seats but also I mean in history just says the average is 22 for a president's first midterm and every Democratic president since LBJ has lost at least one Senate seat in his first midterm and that's that's that that's what history says so the Republican and this is obviously what the Republicans are thinking like, we're so close. It's right here. Just don't talk about anything and just, you know, stand here and pick on social issues, keep your base together, and maybe we can sort of drift into the end zone, right? We're here on the three-yard line. We'll just drift in. If this was the issue set going into next fall, and these were the public

opinions, Republicans would be in trouble, right? I would say that the Democrats' odds of keeping, and the way I look at, I guess the simplest way I can put it is, if these right track, wrong track numbers and Biden's favorability numbers don't soften up, the Republicans are going to be in a tough spot. And this is what our Republican analysis will tell you, what our Republican poster will tell you, is that there's an opportunity here for Republicans, right, that Biden's doing okay, but he's not great, right? The right track, wrong track in the country is still upside down. Now, it's significantly better. When we, when we tested back in last to August, the right track, wrong track for the country, there was a 50 point differential.

We hadn't ever seen that before. 22% said right track. 72% said wrong track. Now it's very different, right? Now it's, I don't know, it's like 45 to 50. Yeah, 45. Yeah. And who knew we'd say 50% wrong track was things looking up?

But yes, absolutely. But things are looking up. People are feeling better about the direction of the country. If that trajectory stays the same, great. But a Republican pollster will say, sure, but it's still not, people aren't walking down the street, whistling, you know, happy tunes. They're still feeling that the country's not in the right place. There's an opportunity there. But Republicans need to refocus on the things that voters are already giving, want to give them an edge on.

And they're not. Instead of focusing on the things voters give them an edge on, like the economy, Republicans are focusing on things voters give them an edge on, like the economy. Republicans are focusing on things voters give Democrats. edge on, like voting rights. And that is... Complaining about Anthony Fauci. Well, the other thing that we're doing, and this is really fascinating, we have been looking at sort of the role of the media ecosystem in shifting attitudes. And so we tested just a couple of names that we wanted to see how voters would react to

them. We tested Black Lives Matter. We tested... Q and on. And we tested Anthony Fauci. Tell them what, tell them what Q got. So you may actually have the numbers in front of you. It's like, I love, I love your poll. Four percent, like a four percent approval rating. Four or six percent, four or six percent approval. And it goes against every dumb to our earlier discussion about polling. Every dump poll that's like 77 percent of Republicans are Q and on supportive because some, you know, this is a marginal, highly marginal. narrow, very unpopular thing. Well, I mean, if you notice in the poll, a full, like,

I think it was close to 40% of the public had never even heard of Q&N. Yep, exactly. But never even heard of Q&N. But here's where it gets interesting. We ask people where they get their information. And if you look at the responses on those three names, QAnon, Black Lives Matter, and Anthony Fauci,

where you get your information correlates with your opinion. So Black Lives Matter has like a 56, 36% approval rating unless you're a daily Fox viewer. If you're a daily Fox viewer, your approval rating of Black Lives Matter is way, way upside down. But isn't that, isn't that a self-selected group, though? Sure. What I mean is people who are inclined to not like Black Lives Matter watch Fox. And I'm sure it's an intent to hire. It's correlative, not causal. Yeah. Right. I'm not saying it's causal. To a degree. Yeah. Right. But that's the age-old.

This is the chicken and egg question, right? Are they going to Fox because they don't like Black Lives Matter? Or, you know, are they liking Black Lives Matter less because they're watching Fox? And both are probably true. This, by the way, was the really interesting issue when I was looking at some of the exit polls now that they're, like, corrected and whatever. When you look at non-white men who voted for Trump, it was highly correlated. with having a negative opinion on Black Lives Matter or thinking crime was spiking, some things like that.

And it really was like chicken and egg. You saw headlines that said, you know, black men who don't approve of Black Lives Matter voted for Trump. It could just as easily be that black men who wanted to vote for Trump, therefore decided to have a negative opinion of Black Lives Matter. So definitely teaching correlation and causation to your college students seems like a top priority. Yes. No, and I think that's exactly right.

So, Mo, I want to push you a little on this idea that the Republicans are focusing on democratic-friendly issues and see what you think about. The Republicans are also focusing heavily. You know, when you look at what ads they're running, sort of the digital ads is sort of a test run, I think, for what's going to happen in the fall, a lot on defund the police still, really heavily. investing in the idea of tying vulnerable Democrats to that phrase. Critical race theory. And critical race theory, Mo, you knew where I was going. School curriculum, critical race theory stuff, the white fragility. And I'm wondering what you see in that and whether that is a productive ground the Republicans

are starting to test out, or in fact, you think that that still will land in an overall positive way for Democrats. So I think it's too soon to tell. I think you saw during the midterms some mixed, I'm sorry, during the last election, some mixed results in how Republicans would go after Democrats. In some places, just calling Democrats socialist was enough to hurt them, particularly the down-ballot candidates. In other places where they ran incredibly heavy rotations trying to,

you know, law and order type ads saying that Democrats are going to burn your cities down or burn your communities down. That didn't work. So it's a little soon to tell. I do think if you are, again, if you are part of the Republican base who gets your information primarily from conservative media, Republicans are keeping you energized with stuff like critical race theory, with stuff like defund the police. We tested how big of a problem people

thought political correctness was and cancel culture. And like nobody other than diehard Republicans think cancel culture is an issue. Independence don't. think cancel culture is a real thing. At least right now, they don't. But Republicans are very animated and motivated by it. So they're going to keep their base motivated by that. And they need to because their base, there are some issues there. Nothing that's necessarily existential right now.

But there are some rifts within the Republican base right now. Whether or not they can get the independence to care about some of these issues. I think that's the heavier lift. But it could, if they, if they hammer away at it, maybe they do. Back in our day, Mo, when we were in partisan politics, let's call it the early aughts, you could really differentiate your audiences with different messages. In fact, it got a lot of politicians in trouble, right? They'd say one thing at a donor event, and then one thing at a rally. And it was pretty hard to tag them for that. and then you saw Mitt Romney's 47% common in 2012, and I would say that was sort of the end of differentiated messages.

But campaigns, it seems to me, still want to, but have not found a way to have one message for their base that they get to their base and their base alone, and one message for independence, if they can get to independence and independence alone, because what you're describing is the Republicans really are going to see dividends for critical race theory, defund the police with their base, but they need a totally different message on the economy,

on right track, wrong track for the independence, and you've got to do both. So how do you do that as an operative right now? So I have two thoughts on this. Number one, I think the biggest problem that Republicans have right now is they are not for anything in the eyes of most voters, right? Other than Donald Trump. They are for Donald Trump, but they are not for an ideology anymore, a worldview. If you ask people what it is that makes them a Republican, this is one of my favorite questions I ask whenever I bring a speaker to Georgetown campus, right? Define Democrat or define Republican, define your party. It's astonishing how much harder it is for Republicans to answer that question today than it was five, ten years ago. So that's number one.

Number two, I actually never thought, I always thought candidates that deliver different messages to different audiences, where candidates that were always going to lose. That you should have one message, one message that you could, with different points of emphasis, but it still feeds back into a core narrative, a core story about who you are, what your worldview is, why you are fighting for people. And then you can tailor specific issues to specific communities, but it all feeds into the bigger story arc. That's the problem right now. That's the problem right now. I think right now, again, Democrats are doing marginally better at telling a story about what it is they want to do and how that helps the average voter than Republicans are other than saying we are anti-Biden and

pro all these culture issues. If there is a defining core narrative of the Republican Party today, in my opinion, it is this notion of we're undergoing a cultural upheaval that is threatening our way of life. And we are the last line of defense against that. Now, that can be a powerful emotional message for the people who believe that. But for everyone else, independent voters, like, what does that give them? I don't think that helps them. They tried the law and order with those people. And those people said, no, that's not enough for me, at least not right now. I do think it is still important to be for something. Our politics used to be defined by a competition about what is the best path towards opportunity with one side saying opportunity is elusive

because government is getting in the way and the other side saying opportunity is elusive because there are so many obstacles and government can help level the playing field. That was it. That was the argument. That's what we were all fighting over all the time. I can't point to that right now what the two sides are of that argument. I think Democrats are still trying to frame things around the opportunity message, or at least I think Joe Biden is.

Right, I was going to push you on that a little. I mean, Democrats have their own fraying at the edges going on here. Yeah, but it's far less, I think, debilitating to the party. I think it is, I think even with every party always has some internal fighting, but they're still generally in the same place. that's not, I think, the case with the Republican electorate. I really don't. I think they are generally unified, but not as much as Donald Trump thinks they are. Do you agree that, and I 100% associate myself with your scale there, the Democrats have a little grease fire in the kitchen. The

Republican's house is a fully ablaze from from rafters to seller the my question is as we see your your poll has Biden at 52 and riding with Biden that's been in a he's a mile wide and an inch deep it's not very intense support and this is what other poll this is what other polls have said but it is in a lot of ways. If you had the choice between having Barack Obama's approval numbers in his first year and Joe Biden's approval numbers, there'd be a pretty strong case that you could make for Joe Biden, who's been right there at 50% or so all along.

Is there a danger for Biden that as you run out of, you know, obviously they're talking about another multi-trillion dollar spending, some big spending package is going to come out that's somewhere between a trillion dollars and four trillion dollars. But that dissatisfaction on the Democratic base will bubble up and they'll start pushing Biden in ways that they haven't before. Like that test still hasn't come and it will come, right? Yeah, it'll come.

And you're starting to see some signs of, you know, some congressional leaders on the left basically saying no climate, no deal, right, on infrastructure if you don't. if you don't include climate and the infrastructure deal. But here's the thing. We keep hearing that from folks on the left. This will maybe the first real legislative test. But Biden's kind of pushed back every time, right? When there was demands on defund the police by what ended up being a very small minority

within the party around on that message, at least. Biden pushed back, right? He said, I'm not going to go there. I'm going to adopt some of the core beliefs that we need to reallocate some funding, but I'm not going to defund the police. And he did not pay a political price for that. And we've seen that time and time again, where Biden has been willing to push back on some of the loudest demands from the left

while still allowing them to feel included in the process. And that's where I think Biden's many years of skilled politicking has been very beneficial to him. that is all true. But as you know, when a president is successful and having success, that's when it's hardest to take care of your base because they become more demanding. And we think about George Bush with the Harriet Myers and immigration bill. We think about what the numerous occasions where the left, and this was certainly the case going into 2014, didn't want to be helpful to Obama. And if you're popular and if you're successful, it's your own party that can make you a lame duck, right? And I'm not, Biden has been, he's been Teflon. He has done an tremendous job.

He's coming off of a low, a low baseline. The baseline for competency was low, but he has done a good job. But at some point, that's going to be there, right? I think if, if we revert back to sort of normal rules of politics, I think that's true. I'm not sure we're ready to revert yet. because I think all Biden has to do when the left starts coming at him is just point to Marjorie Taylor Green, right? And point to the stuff that has been, point to Maricopa County, Arizona and what's going on there and say, this is the alternative. We can either try to, you know, not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, right,

and get as much done as we possibly can. and it may not be perfect, but if you revolt, look what we get. Totally. The walking cautionary tale. I think that is still more compelling now than it normally is, right, in a midterm election, when the governing party tries to point to the other side and say, you want that? It is more compelling now because we just see such a level of crazy coming out of the other side. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss.

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I was blown away by the numbers in the primary for turnout and how well he did. I bet he won the plurality of non-white voters, even when there were three black candidates running essentially against him on that. How do you see the race? I think Virginia is a bluest shade of purple, is its new. natural state. And I think McCullough is, you know, McCullough built up a lot of goodwill. He left office as one of the most popular governors, not just in the Commonwealth, in Commonwealth history, but in the country. He left office the first time. And he's maintained a lot

of that goodwill. Yon again, I mean, I think the Republican Party, Republican candidates are struggling right now to figure out what the right approach is. So Yonkin just came through a very contentious Republican nominating battle. And what are his first round of ads? about critical race theory, right? Like, I have not seen those ads. I did see a really good ad. I mean, a lot of digital ads. A lot of digital ads.

He's, he's, so I just, I wonder whether or not, like, they're going to have a, a message that can tap into those northern Virginia suburbs and excerpts where statewide elections are decided in Virginia. You know, I worked on, as you mentioned, I've worked on a number of statewide races. And when Republicans try to run cultural battles in Virginia, they lose. And we saw that until when Tim Kane was running for governor, his opponent was hammering him with ads of talking about his personal opposition to the death penalty. Virginians love the death penalty. And our response ads were talking about traffic and transportation.

And right? And that's what motivated voters. McCullough is really good at tapping into that, the stuff that motivates, sort of the kitchen table issues that motivate voters. We'll see if Yonkin can do that. But some of the initial stuff I've seen coming out of there just shows that he's going to kind of run the National Republican Playbook, and that worries me. Watching baseball last night, I saw a good ad, which was Yonkin in street clothes, in civilian clothes, walking down a middle stripe line on a road, cutting through. a sea of faceless, blue-suited politicians. That's a pretty good message.

But what I told a Virginia Republican Politico the other day was, he said, do you think Yonkin has a chance? I said, sure, he's got a chance. He's got a two-and-five chance. And as long as Joe Biden's approval rating nationally, and Virginia is pretty closely indexed to what national sentiment's going to be here, Joe Biden's over 50%. Glenn Yon ain't going to win. But if Biden stumbles or the Democrats have a problem between now and November, you got a shot.

Well, and here's the other thing. You're running as an outsider at a time when people are actually not that dissatisfied with the status quo in Virginia. They liked how McCullough. They liked McCullough. They like Northam, right? And they like Biden. So to say I'm not going to be that, people are like, well, I'm actually kind of happy with this right now. I think y'all are missing the reason that Yonkin will lose. why name ID if yon were running against just in fairfax or somewhat you know one of the other candidates who were running against mccoliffe and it was sort of a low name ID race i think then yonkin has that two in five maybe even a higher shot i think when you're running against terry mcculliff

with you know not 100% name idea in the state but high name ID in the state um i don't see yon overcoming that in those marginal voters who don't have, you know, who aren't going to watch all these ads, aren't going to have strong opinions, but they know who Terry McAuliffe is. I think it's name ID coupled with high favorability. People like Terry in the Commonwealth right now, particularly in those suburban and exorban communities. So I think you're right, right? People know him and they like him. How do you then run as an outsider against that? Mo, I also want to talk to you about the New York City mayor's Democratic primary that's happening on Tuesday without knowing who's going to win. And I don't even want your prediction

of who's going to win. I want two things. One, is this the beginning of rape choice voting spreading like wildfire through the country like I want? And two, when we know who wins, what should we say that means for the Democratic Party and the direction that it's going, or is the New York mayor's Democratic primary such a small group of very specific types of Democrats that we shouldn't read anything into it, even though you and I both know all of the headlines will blare on Wednesday. Yeah. So second question first, I'd look a lot more at what's going on in Virginia if you want to read tea leaves than what's going on in the New York City mayor's race, right?

like looking at a primary in a partisan town doesn't tell you a lot about what's happening in the country. Maybe it tells you a little bit about what's happening in urban communities, heavily democratic urban communities. But I have the same caution when like everyone wanted to write that AOC was the new face of the Democratic Party. She just took a, she won in a blue district that was shifting more in her direction already, that doesn't tell you about where the electorate as a whole is. Although AOC has been an influence on the Democratic Party, I think you would agree. Amongst many influences on the Democratic Party, right? Joe Manchin is an influence on the Democratic Party right now. Whether they'd like it or not. And I'm not trying to take

anything away from AOC, but my point is she is not reflective of the direction of the the party as a whole. She is an important voice. And I think that's how you look at at a democratic primary in a heavily democratic city. It's just a data point. It is not reflective of the whole thing. Ranked choice voting. I am so interested in what happens with that moving forward. We're seeing more and more places flirt with it. This might be one of the first really big test cases, right? It is. It's the largest population to use it in the United States. I mean, Alaska and Maine with all due respect, just, you know, it's not getting people jumping out of bed the way this is getting me jumping out of bed in part, Mo, because I have this post-operative

life jealousy. I want the chance, like, I want to go run a ranked choice voting race because it is such a different, interesting challenge. It is very, I mean, it just changes the way you do campaigns. Totally. That's a good thing. Yeah. Right. I think that's probably a good thing, because Lord knows when you and I got out of the business was not the heyday of political campaigning. maybe that's why we got out of the business when we did. But I do think it adds a lot more nuance in the way that voters are more nuanced. And that's a good thing. So I'll be curious to see what it does.

And I would not be surprised if you do see more and more places flirting with it at least. All right. What advice do you have right now for the Biden comms team? What aren't they doing well? I actually think they're doing a relatively decent job. It's a hard job, right? I mean, I spent my whole career in politics working in communications, never at the White House. And I'm thankful that I'd never worked communications at the White House because it's a tough, tough job. But I think they're doing a fairly good job. Look, the one thing I wanted them to do as a Democrat and frankly as a citizen was be more present, right? Get back out there. And I think one of the biggest problems,

one of the most important things Joe Biden needed to do was reestablished trust between the electorate and their government and to demonstrate competence and to demonstrate accessibility. I think they have done that. Are they doing it in a way that makes everyone happy all the time? No. But they certainly have moved us back in that direction. I thought the Andy Slavitt, you know, coronavirus task force briefings were great. I think Jen Saki is good at the podium. I would like maybe to have the president himself out there a little bit more. Maybe not necessarily taking reporter questions, but just seeing him a little bit more.

because I think Joe Biden has a unique ability to reassure voters in a way that most political leaders can't, right? I just feel better when I hear him talk about something. It just makes me feel more at ease. And I think a lot of people feel that way. When we're seeing it in some of our focus groups even, even soft, we did the focus groups recently with hesitant Trump voters from 2020. And even they were saying, you know, I'd like to see the president. I'd like to see the president. like to see Biden a little bit more because it just, you know, I voted for Trump, but I don't dislike Biden. And whenever I hear from him, it makes me feel a little bit better. So I'd like to see the president a little bit more. But generally, I think they're doing a good job.

All right. Stairwell, you get the last question. And then I've got an ending topic for us. Well, I guess the only question I have is how do you, how have your students changed? How has their perception of politics, why they want to be in and around politics? You're dealing with the cream of the crop, right? You're people from around the country and around the world, and they want to be in the best school in Washington at the doing politics there. So you've got, sorry, George Washington. But the, so you have the elite of the elite. What have you seen the change in them over the past?

Well, you've been there. How long now? Six years. We opened the doors to the institute six years ago. so what's the difference in the in the students between now and then so it's interesting our motto like when you go to our website our motto front and center where the institute of politics and public service our motto is public service is a good thing politics can be too and right and and and that's sort of what motivates us it's this notion that politics should not and it does not inherently need to be a dirty word

that it is how democracies settle their differences, that the competition of ideas should make for better government, that it's okay to be partisan if being partisan means you care so much about a worldview that you wake up every day and fight like hell for that worldview. But that we're missing the mark in a lot of ways. And that's sort of what, right, that there are winners and losers in politics. Can we be better winners and losers?

Can we make sure that the fight is just, you know, a means to the end instead of the end itself? And we're missing the marks on. One of the things that has always impressed me about our students is they get that. They get that politics is an important process and it's important form of public service. At least, you know, if you do it the way Sarah did it back when she was still in it. And they really, truly wanted to understand differences, right? They did not immediately ascribe motivations to their political opponents.

They wanted to actually understand it, in part, to see if maybe there was a middle ground on an issue, or if there wasn't, at least just to better inform their own advocacy. I will be a better advocate if I understand what motivates Republican voters instead of just saying. if you're voting for Donald Trump, you are immediately a racist misogynist. If I understand what it is that actually motivates you, maybe I can better advocate my side to you. And students get that. And they get that inherently. It has become more challenging, though, over the past couple of years.

We are seeing some of the same fault lines that is defining politics overall. I'm starting to see some of that on campus. They are self-selecting a little bit more, Republican students going. primarily to Republican speakers and Democratic students going primarily to Democratic speakers, but not entirely. We're still seeing the crossover that is important. And that's what gives me hope is that they are more willing than my generation was to sit down and have difficult conversations with people that disagree with them. And I think that's the starting point, right? Let's send some more food truck, Sarah, to all these college campuses and get these people to meet over some fries

and just talk. I'm so for that. But no carbs, no carbs, Mo. You can't keep the carbs out. They just do pork rides. This dire wall approach to politics, all about the pork rides. It's all about the pork. All right, Mo, my last topic for you, I am in an incredibly good mood today because if

If we had talked yesterday about our favorite national holiday, it wouldn't have been a close call for me. I would have said Thanksgiving. And that is going to be my question to you of what is your favorite national holiday. But today, Mo, I have a new favorite national holiday. I am so thrilled that Texas gets to export my favorite Texas holiday to the nation today. It is official. Juneteenth is now a federal holiday. This is the anniversary of when enslaved people in Texas found out about the Emancipation Proclamation that had been signed in 1862, freeing any enslaved people in rebellious states. They found out about it on June 19th, 1865 in Galveston, Texas.

It is a wonderful celebration in Texas, and I'm just, I'm so happy today. I'm thrilled. I think it is in part an answer to what we're all talking about, which is it is recognizing the darkest moment of. our history while celebrating and finding joy in its ending. We're not ignoring it. We're not tearing down statues. We're not pretending it didn't exist. But we're also recognizing progress and a future from that history. And I love it. And I'm so happy. So my question to you is Mo, what's your favorite federal holiday? Well, I mean, I'm so inspired by what you just said.

And I agree. Holy. I am so excited about Juneteen. I just hope Juneteenth doesn't turn into just a, you know, that people remember what this is about, right? Too many of these federal holidays that are supposed to be in Memorial. Mattress sales. Yes, exactly. Celebrate our war dead by buying a new Honda, yes. I mean, I would never speak ill of barbecue.

You know that, Chris. But like, Memorial Day should be about more than just the barbecue, right? I really hope that's the case with Juneteenth and that it is as reflective as it is celebratory moving forward. My favorite holiday that are not holidays. My two favorite days of the year are not holidays, and I desperately want them to be, or at least federal holidays. One is election day. I want Election Day to be a federal holiday. I think that is important.

Agreed. One of the things I'm very proud of at Georgetown is college Democrats and college Republicans have come together through our institute to do celebrations of democracy on election day. They stop doing separate election night watch parties. they come together for one big one with our institute. Election Day should be a celebration of civic engagement, and I would like to see that at federal holiday. My absolute favorite holiday is Halloween, and I think we should all take the week off, frankly, not just the day.

The Halloween people. You people are the worst. Back off. The Halloween people are the worst. And it's not even about the candy for me. I like scaring little people. That's what I like doing. Are you like spider webs?

in the front of the house and you dress up in ghoulish attire and everything? My kids are still young enough that we can get away with family-themed costumes. But I only have like a year or two of that left. And as soon as the kids move on past us, I'm going full on a demon house just to scare all the neighborhood kids. Mo, I feel like you need to consider Judaism. You get a whole second Halloween. That is right.

My wife is Jewish, so I get it anyway. There you go. Exactly. How did I not know that? Wow. You'll be the only haunted house on the street with the cold nidre. All right, Chris. Every day should be. What's your favorite holiday? It's thanks. I mean, my favorite secular governmental holiday. I'm an Easter person first. I love Easter for real holidays.

But for federal holidays, I'm still a Thanksgiving guy because I'm a Lincoln dude. So I'm into it. All right. Well, now we have. two Lincoln holidays. We have Thanksgiving and Juneteenth, and we have a wonderful conversation with Moe Lathie that you can just listen to over and over again as the midterms progress. Whatever you need to get put to sleep. Can't fall asleep. Can't fall asleep. Listen to me. Mo, thank you so much. This is a treat. You know you're one of my favorite people and not just favorite Democrats. So it's great. I always love talking with the two of you. So thanks for having you.

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