The MeidasTouch Podcast - Data Experts who NAILED the midterm election results Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonier

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Ben, Brett and Jordy chat with Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonier about the latest midterm data. Rosenberg and Bonier were both recent guests on the MeidasTouch Podcast are were just about the only analysts who followed the data and accurately pushed back against projections of a 'red wave.' Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario and welcome back to our continuing midterm elections coverage here on the Midas Touch Network. I am Ben Meiselis, joined by my brothers, Brett and Jordy Meiselis. In a moment, we will be joined by Simon Rosenberg, a political analyst in his 17th political cycle. And notably, he was there in the 1992 Clinton election war room, a leader in the DCCC's efforts leading the blue wave in 2018, and someone who has been spot on in reviewing and projecting the data for this election cycle. And we will also be joined by Tom Bonnier, the CEO of TargetSmart, whose proprietary data analysis of early voter turnout and voting trends was spot on in this election cycle. And while the media focused on false narratives of the red wave and doom and gloom for Democrats, we had both Simon and Tom as guests leading up to the elections right here on the Midas Touch Network. And we rolled up our sleeves and spent considerable time going through the data and where it was pointing because the data is the data. And when there was 40 million votes, early votes that existed, Simon and Tom were there extrapolating what we learned from that data set as opposed to the polls that were just being pushed, most of them,

by right-wingers to try to push. A novel concept. A narrative. So I'm excited to welcome them in the show in a little bit. One of the things I want to show our viewers and listeners, though, is how Simon particularly was being mocked on Fox by Laura Ingraham and others for his analysis and his projections leading to the midterms. We have that clip. Let's put it up right now. It's more than half the polls conducted in October have been been conducted by Republican firms. And that means that basically we can't trust

the data on RealClearPolitics or 538 any longer because it's essentially Republican propaganda. Oh, Simon, come on. Joining us now to respond is the president and co-founder of RealClearPolitics, Tom Bevin. Tom, your reaction to this assault on the RealClearPolitics site and averages as it's all Republican propaganda. Your reaction tonight? Yeah, a couple of points to make. Number one, it's actually been the Republican firms like Trafalgar and others who've been more accurate over the last three cycles than most polling firms. Famous last words, famous last words, Simon Rosenberg being torched by Fox News before he was proven right. And not to sound like some internet hipster, but I kind of feel like we got to know Simon

and Tom before it was cool. I feel like now I'm seeing them go and make the rounds on all the MSNBCs on, on all the stations. But I got to say, I think we were like, you know, we're like kind of, we were definitely, we were, we were definitely hip to it and the Midas Mighty were hip to it. Yeah. Brett, you gave that analogy earlier with the people who go to the rock band when there were like 20 people in the crowd.

I like to say that when they, before they were full rock stars, even though we knew they were rock stars, we were that crew in the crowd right there. But let's welcome them to the show right now, Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonnier. Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast. We got both of you. Let's go. Let's go. Look at this energy. Great to see you guys. So here's what I know. I know as a good interviewer, you know when to shut up and when the people who have the data and who the people want to listen to, and it's you two right now. So Simon, let me just start with you and your overall reaction to the results so far from these midterms. Yeah, you know, we weren't surprised. I mean, our basic view of the election was that this was going to be a close competitive election, that Democrats, you know, had overperformed, you know, over the last few months in all

the various measures, right, in Kansas, in the five House specials, in voter reg, in fundraising, in the early vote, and that, you know, that we were going to bring it in this election on Election Day, and that what we had seen with Republicans was constant underperformance, right? They underperformed in the specials and in Kansas and in voter reg and fundraising and the early vote. And that, you know, as I wrote on election day itself, it's like, all of a sudden the Republicans are going to find their mojo after not having

it for the last five months. It's possible, but it's also not likely. And so we were optimistic that we were going to overperform expectations. And I think that's what's happened. Tom, how'd your data hold up? Yeah. I mean, first, can I say I'm kind of upset that you just made me watch Fox News, but I'll get over it. That was actually a great clip. I hadn't seen it. Now I want to watch it on a loop. Simon, you had seen that, right? Obviously, I'm sure you had seen that. No, I actually hadn't seen it. So I appreciate it. You know, I was a regular commentator on Fox for 17 years.

So they know me very, very well there. And so, you know. So they were coming for you specifically. I know. It's okay. I can handle it. I appreciate it. All right.

Sorry to interrupt, Tom. Yeah, no, it was great. It was a great clip. How'd the data hold up? I mean, it held up very well. That's the great thing is if you just trust the data, then you're not putting yourself on an island, though I think Simon and I felt like we were occupying a very lonely island at times. Twitter can be an awful place when you're running counter to the narrative. But look, there were two different worlds. And we talked about this when we got together just a couple of days ago, though it feels like it was maybe about two weeks ago. There are two different worlds. There was what we were seeing, everything that Simon talked

about with the voter registration data, the special elections, the Kansas election, the voter registration surges among women, younger voters. Simon did such a wonderful job then promoting the early vote. It was consistent. That was the one thing we could say. But it was all pointed in one direction. And that was Democratic intensity. And then there was the other world, which was the polling, which was like this, this world that had gone absolutely crazy.

I call it at one point to choose your own adventure, which probably dates me, but those were books that were fun when I was a kid. You could kind of choose which ending you want. That's a kind way of putting it. Honestly, like there was a lot of very crazy bad polling there as As you showed in your clip, Simon did a great job calling them out on that. And I think it actually did change the narrative in an effective way. But yeah, all the numbers that we held up, seeing that Democratic intensity trajectory consistently, it's exactly what you would have expected to see on election day, which is,

as Simon said, a very close and competitive election. Simon, what were you looking for when you would analyze Tom's data leading up to the election? What trends were you looking for? And how were you able to extrapolate the narrative, which was the narrative of the midterms? Yeah. So first of all, you know, I wrote a piece a year ago saying that I thought this was not going to be a typical midterm, that the fact that Republicans had made, I think, a huge error, which is they ran towards a politics MAGA, which had just been rejected by the American people twice in overwhelming numbers, meant that they were going to lower, you know, have a lower ceiling. They were going to have a harder time taking advantage of their

opportunities because there were just going to be a lot of people who may have been disappointed in Joe Biden who just weren't going to go back and vote MAGA. So I was always of the belief that they were going to struggle a little bit in the midterms because of this. And then what we looked at with Tom's data, and this is what was so remarkable and why I was so confident in what we were seeing, is the data was the same every day. It was just unbelievably consistent. I mean, just imagine that the Democratic number was 50-39 for like 10 days. It didn't really change. And that meant the data was like real. It was just solid. It was coming

in the same every day. And in fact, in the last week to 10 days, it got better and better and better in many places. And so there was no contradictory data. The second thing that also made me confident was that in the final week or the final 10 days, if you take out the partisan tracking polls nationally, we were up by about a point and a half. And in some of the polls, we're showing movement towards the Democrats. Even Rasmussen's last poll, Friday before the election, had us gaining two points. Well, that was consistent with what we were seeing in the early vote data, right, where things were getting better for us. And I remember Chris Eliza wrote this column about a week ago saying the bottom had fallen out

for the Democratic Party. And I was, yeah, and I was worried. By the way, he gave me a shout out on Twitter today. But I was worried about the bottom falling out and then we'd go to the data and like things were getting better. And so Tom and I would say like, well, we're just not, I mean, there's a lot of people voting

and if the bottom was falling out, we would see it and we weren't seeing it. And so I think part of what we have to recognize is that what Tom built, the site that he and his team built, this Target Early, is an amazing thing. We were, we had access to what was happening in the early vote that many other, you know, it was public, right? But other people weren't using it and they weren't doing the same kind of rigorous analysis we were doing. And, you know, hats off to Tom, frankly, for creating this public resource where he, you know, they spent their own money to do this, to make it available to everybody. You know, it was used proprietor leave also by NBC News. But, you know, part of it is that this idea that, you know, well, you just have to

dismiss the early vote, which is what the Republican argument was. You've got to be kidding me. I mean, lots of people were voting every day. Tons of information. Isn't an election about people voting? I mean, it's not about polling. Polling is not an election. Voting is an election. And we were being given mountains of data about the election. Why the media chose to ignore it is really one of the big questions we'll be talking about over the next couple of months. So, Tom, to you, why did the media, why do you think when you had this data set of 40 million votes, which clearly shows a trend, why were you being ignored when you're screaming from the rooftop? Look, look at what

the data is saying. Why were you being ignored? Well, first, if I can say, Simon mentioned my team. I'm very uncomfortable getting any of the credit for this. We have an incredible team at Target Smart, built this resource, builds the database, does the incredible work. They deserve all the credit here. In terms of the media, it wasn't shocking to me. There was a lot of bad early vote analysis out there in prior elections. There was a lot of bad early vote analysis out there. It's something that it takes a little bit of skill to do, and it takes a lot of context. And that's what we've tried to do with the Target Early site to say, well, yeah, look at this. But when you look at Pennsylvania and you see Democrats plus 50, view that in the context of prior elections. Plus 50 is a huge number. In Pennsylvania, it

turned out looking like a great number anyhow, because in prior elections, it was about plus 44, I think, Democratic. So we could look at that in that context and know it's better. But the reality was, I think the media felt a little bit burned by bad analysis in the past. And frankly, I think there was the bigger issue. The analysis didn't line up with their expectations and their priors. They were expecting this to be a red wave. There's no question, right? I don't think that's a controversial statement. If you turned on any cable news outlet across the spectrum, as we got into the last week, especially the expectation was with some exceptions, that this was going to be an inevitable red wave. And this was data that

was contrary to that point. But as I've said again, and again, and again, if you can look at a database of 45 million people who voted in this election, we know they voted and you can't draw some conclusions from that. You're doing this wrong. We talked they voted and you can't draw some conclusions from that. You're doing this wrong. We talked about this on Monday. You know, all the caveats that go that y'all use the great metaphor of a football game

and the Raiders being up at halftime doesn't mean they're going to win. And that's what we look. We said, look, this isn't a guarantee the Democrats are going to win. But what we can say is they've built up a lead. It's a strategic advantage. And that lead is bigger as a percentage of the early vote than it was in 2020. You can

draw your own conclusions from there, but that seems relevant. Simon, tell us about the gamesmanship of a lot of these right-wing partisan polls that tried to flood the zone here. Had we seen that before? This is your 17th election cycle. Was this kind of a new phenomenon that it was done to this degree here? And now what happens to those polls, one of them was referenced as Trafalgar or whatever they're called, which we always, which is not accurate, but a lot of these partisan polls. So tell us about that. Yeah, look, this was an unprecedented effort to gain the polling averages. I mean, there's just no question that's what happened. Anyone who believes there was something else happening, it's just ridiculous. And the question is why, right? And what I've come to believe now is that

I think Republicans knew they weren't doing well in the election. I think they knew they were having problems with intensity and that they did this to sort of create, to make their own voters, their donors, their community feel better about how things were going. And I think it's just like the idea that a party could have actually tried to delegitimize the last election and tried to install illegally their guy in as president, and then led an attack on the Capitol where people died. The idea that they could like, spend a couple million bucks to dump a bunch of polls into the system to gain the averages. That's like miniature golf, right compared to what they did last time. I mean, this is like, and so it's clear to me this happened. And I think it was and what I came to believe is that it was a sign of weakness.

It was a sign, they were telling us that they didn't think they had it and that they needed to create a different kind of narrative. What's so disappointing to me is that there's so many people in the media and so many people who are actually experts, right? Smart people who study elections fell for it. And that's the thing that has kind of been shocking to me.

And it's been interesting to watch, you know, Nate Silver, for example, who I think contributed to this false red wave narrative, you know, try to reconcile, you know, what he did, because he, you know, he was a little bit of an Elon Musk here in the last few weeks, right, where we're just going to let everything get on there. And, you know, even though we're allowing polls on here of high school kids and Canadian firms and a Brazilian firm and all these Republican polls, which are clearly, you know, BS, right, in terms of the way their numbers, I'm going to just let, you know, the average, you know, my secret sauce that creates waiting and all this stuff was somehow going to allow that stuff to disappear. And of course, that isn't what happened. I mean, Republicans were not only pushed the averages down by this campaign, but then they

were able to show the image of the site where there's like six consecutive polls showing Warnock down, right? And this was used as propaganda. And so I do think that the people, I'm very disappointed, honestly, in many of the people that I've worked with for a long time who are political analysts, who are smart people, who were getting played. I think in many cases they knew they were getting played, but they couldn't figure out a way out of it. And as we discussed, I think in the show the other day, this felt a little bit like to me what happened with the Russian disinformation in the 2016 election. I mean, the media knew this stuff was coming from Russia. They knew it was part of a Russian campaign

and they continued to report on it because Republicans were making noise about it. So they had to make, they had to report on the fact that Republicans were talking about this information. And so we've gotta be smarter here, right? People got played really hard. There's gonna have to be a really big conversation about how to prevent this from ever happening again. And I've got a lot of ideas and I think Tom and I will be weighing in on this, you know, in a few weeks. Well, I want to hear

what some of those ideas are, but first Tom, any surprises and what are you looking at right now? We still don't have the complete picture. So people want to know, you've got it right so far. What are you looking for right now? You're on mute, Tom. Yeah. In terms of surprises, I'm making all sorts of mistakes. I slept two hours. Forgive it. Forgive it. If it was Brett, we wouldn't forgive him. But Tom. Brett was very quick to forgive me on that one. In elections like these, you tend to have surprises, right? We talked about this the other day that 2018 produced surprises.

Democrats picking up a seat in Oklahoma. You're having some of those emerge, right? I think the big one from last night was seeing Lauren Boebert in a very close race. That was one that wasn't on anyone's radar at all. You know, who knows? I think, you know, the New York Times Needle still thinks that she's going to win it. I haven't looked at that recently. Maybe there's more recent news. But there are races like that.

More of these will emerge. I think when you look in Pennsylvania, Democrats likely taking control of the state house. These are things that slip under the radar. In Michigan, same thing. Yes. My mom's from Pittsburgh, so I've got roots there. Oh, let's go. Yinser. I love it. So we're going to see more of these things, right? This is the kind of election where it'll be a week after and you're looking and say, oh my my God, you know, can you believe we won that race? But these are meaningful, right? These governorships in the Midwest that didn't get as much attention. Certainly Michigan got more attention, but as she pulled away, you know, well, despite what Trafalgar had us believe where she was going to lose. But the fact that Democrats have the trifecta there now, that's remarkable and impactful. I think in terms of what I'm looking at now,

I think it's the same thing that everyone else is for the next little bit. We're going to play the game of how many votes are still to be counted and where are they from? And are they mail votes or are they election day votes? Are they provisional votes? We're going to be doing that in Nevada and Arizona. We will be providing as much context as we can as we see these things. We just heard Nevada said they were going to tell us at 1.30 Eastern time how many ballots were still out to be counted in Clark County. It's like they're building suspense because as I understand, they still haven't told us. The last thing they said

is there are 300 boxes full of ballots. So if anyone has that unit conversion of how many ballots fit in the box, please let me know. But look, these are votes that should be these mail votes. The votes that were in drop boxes on election day should be very democratic. Also keep in mind, Nevada is a state where ballot curing is allowed. So if someone submitted a mail ballot, dropped it off, and it had some issue in terms of lacking the proper signature or dating or whatever you have to have on it, those ballots can be cured. And so you have great democratic field operations in Nevada that will be going out and they'll be contacting voters and letting them know if their ballot was

not accepted. So they have the opportunity to go out and resubmit it. So it could be several days. You have up until next Tuesday to cure ballots in Nevada. And then the last thing we will all be watching, of course, and hopefully we'll be talking more about this in the next four weeks, is the Georgia runoff. Simon, what do we do about the disinformation? You brought it up. I don't mean to get your thoughts before you've fully formulated with Tom. But what's your initial thoughts of how we rebut this disinfo polling in future elections? Well, I think it's a part of a bigger problem,

which is that the Republican noise machine has just become, we can't match it on a day-to-day basis on anything. I mean, they're able to move such ridiculous things like the fentanyl and Halloween candy and turn this into a national issue. And so they're become very adept at flooding the zone, basically not just with BS polls, but BS stuff in general. And we need to get louder. And one of the reasons I'm here with all of you today is that I think that, you know, one of the big, I said earlier in an interview that Joe Biden has overperformed in governing and underperformed in the information war. And that really, in many ways,

the next few years, we've got to make a major collective commitment as Democrats to get much louder in all the ways that one can get louder. I mean, it's your work that you're doing. You know, it's the party itself has to do it. I mean, we have to start developing you know i was part of the 1992 war room and i've argued that the war room today should be four million people wired into the dnc you know getting information amplifying being loud right we we have to create more purposeful amplification that's part of what they have they're feeding this beast that where regular people are spreading their stuff at massive volumes and i think some of the some of the answer to this is the new you and what you're doing and the new podcasting universe that has emerged that's i think super powerful and super

creative and super interesting i'm learning so much about it you know and i'm supe really as a former tv producer and writer i'm really impressed with all of this and the quality and intensity of what you guys have pulled off, it's amazing to me. I'm just in awe, frankly, of what you all have built. And, but we need more of it and it needs to become bigger and stronger and our grassroots Democrats need to understand that by watching you and spreading this information,

you're actually helping the cause, right? These are all things that have to become more intentional as opposed to ad hoc and sort of invented, right, and entrepreneurial. And I think that's, to me, one of the biggest projects in the party in the next couple of years. And so Simon and Tom, I know you're both busy right now doing tons of interviews. So Tom, your final thoughts? Well, number one, I appreciate y'all doing everything that Simon, you know, just got into in terms of providing this platform, because frankly, it was it was difficult.

Like I said, it was lonely to a certain extent when we're sharing this information. Y'all providing that platform to get the real information out, I think makes a difference. What we saw was there were a lot of people on the Democratic side who are lacking hope because all they were looking for was a hope that this was possible, that Democrats could be in it. And that's what we were seeing in the data. But getting that message out was so critical and crucial. And again, I don't think this race ends up where it ends up without people believing that their vote matters because that's in the end why people vote and they need to hear these messages. So very appreciative of that. Simon, any final thoughts from you before we go? Yeah, two quick things. One is MAGA is a political loser for the Republicans. They've had three

disappointing elections in a row. I hope that this weakens the whole ideological hold of MAGA over the Republican Party. I hope it strengthens the more reasonable Republicans like Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol and all these brave, courageous Republicans that have been fighting the MAGA takeover of their party. I mean, they deserve a lot of credit today for having stuck their... You think we stuck our necks out? Oh my God. Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol and Michael Steele and Joe Scarborough and all these, Matthew Dowd, this whole Sarah Longwell, they've all been so courageous in fighting the hostile takeover of their party by an extremist set of views. And so super hats off to them. They deserve a lot of credit today. And then the final thing I want to say is that what kept me going when I was worried

about whether I was right or whether we were stepping out beyond where the data was, what kept me going was the engagements I had over Zoom with small groups of Democrats all across the country who let me know how motivated they were, how intense they were, how important this election was. And that gave me the strength every day to go do what I did. It wasn't, I got the strength from all of you, all of you and the passion, the love of country, the grit, the resilience that I was feeling in all these events I did. You gave this to me. And I think this is a bottom up election victory for the Democratic Party. I don't think this was a top down election victory. I think that the people in our party just said, fuck it. Like, we're going to go fight and we're going to go win this thing. And, you know, we, because we have to

do it for our kids and our grandkids and for the future of our country. And you know what? We did it, everybody, right? Like, this is a third election in a row where, you know, we may not be exactly where we want to be, but, you know, we've wounded them and that's what we needed to do. And so just, I want to end by saying thank you to all the people around this country who wrote their postcards, knocked on doors, spread your videos, right? Texted all the things that they did.

They gave a crap, right? To fight for their country. This is your day. And I'm just really grateful to all of you for what you were able to do. Simon Rosenberg, Tom Bonnier, we thank you. The Midas Mighty thanks you. The country thanks you. Have a great day. Go fight, win, everybody. Thanks, y'all. Thank you so much. Simon Rosenberg and Tom Bonnier, everyone's so great having them on the podcast today and having them come on the podcast leading up to the election.

It's funny. I've spoken to a few people and I asked them, Brett and Jordi, I said, are you all surprised about the outcome? And they said, well, we listened to the Midas Touch podcast, so you've been telling us this. So it didn't shock me as much as it shocked the rest of the nation. And I said, because what we try to curate here with a lot of hard work is bringing the objective reality backed up by the research and the data to the people to show them the data as well. Like when I do my legal updates, I show the cases, I show where it's stated, I give the citations the way it's supposed to be done. I want to get

your thoughts, Brett and Jordy, on the interview we just had in a minute, but you all just heard how important independent media platforms like this is. We are not funded by any outside investors at all. So none of the millionaire or billionaire outside investors who fund the both sides media or the pro-fascist media, we have none of that. We are purely fueled by democracy and powered by your generosity. That's it. You're the secret sauce to the Midas Touch Network because it is a community. And to help grow the community, go check out our Patreon website at patreon.com slash Midas Touch.

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Then you get a poster commemorating it. You can get postcards, exclusive merch drops, and so much more. But most importantly, that's wherever you are in the world, you can help grow this media platform and you can be a part of it. So go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch. Support the work here that you love. Become a part, not just of the network, but of this movement. Patreon.com slash Midas Touch. And while you're at it, check out store.midastouch.com for the best unapologetically pro-democracy gear. We had the Rovember shirts that did incredibly well. I saw them being worn all across the country. The row, row your votes. All of our merch is 100% union made, 100% made in America. And I know that

people say imitation is the best form of flattery. And there are a lot of people who tried to do knockoffs of the merch that we innovate here, but those aren't union made and those aren't made in America. And so in this case, I'd ask you to go to our store instead of the fakes. Store.MidasTouch.com. Brett and Jordy, what did you think of that interview? I mean, I think they're brilliant. And listen, why did we, Ben, Brett, and Jordy, get this right and steer people in the right direction? It's not because we have any extra intelligence or insight into the inner workings of what's been going on.

It's just we didn't listen to the noise. And we looked at the numbers. The numbers made sense to us. And then we tried to make sure that people were hearing those numbers. Now, imagine for one second, if people all across the country were given the correct expectations about what to happen. I mean, it could have affected the race in numerous ways. Maybe people wouldn't have been scared to go to the polls, but maybe it would have motivated people a little more as well to think that Democrats have a chance of pulling this thing off instead of which I think is, you know, kind of suppressing the vote in scaring them and thinking that a red wave is inevitable. I mean, think about the days leading up to these elections. Think about the comments we saw online that had tens of thousands of retweets from people like Colin Coward and Bill Maher going on.

Yeah, you can look it up. And Bill Maher going on his show and saying Democrats are about to get blown out and, you know, pundit at one pundit after the next and Fox News being so giddy that it was going to happen. But guess what? The people do not want this extremism of the Republican Party. And I think Simon hinted at that at the end, that this is a, it should be a death blow to MAGA. Will it be? Probably not. What I think happens here is I think instead of going down the path they should, which is, you know what? Maybe we shouldn't try to offend literally every group of people out there. Maybe we shouldn't try to offend nearly all Americans, except the ones who look like us. Maybe we'd be a little bit more inclusive here and instead fight on policy grounds. I think they're going to dive straight back into the same culture war stuff

that got them here in the first place. And it'll be interesting to see how this lands, how things end up in the house. And we will see. It seems like at this point, though, we may not even know for a few days the final results. But I think everyone should genuinely be super proud of the blue firewall that we all put up against the red wave that stopped the red wave and the reports of the red tsunami, which were far overblown and did not actually come to fruition. And yeah, I mean, to that too, it's just like sensible policy is important. They ran on taking away your social security and Medicare. These Republicans, they ran on stripping away abortion rights. What are they doing? I mean, why do they think those are winning issues? It's because they

think that they are this magnificent red wave and they're invincible and they get so sucked into their own MAGAverse that they start believing themselves and they start believing these polls, forgetting that they funded the polls to put out there to flood the zone. And then they're just believing their own shit at the end of the day. And it was remarkable to watch. I'm so grateful we've had Simon and Tom on the show to break it down. I think one of the stuff that we do pretty well on the show and anyone that listens to us religiously, they know, look, my background is marketing. Brett's background, he's a wicked video editor. Ben, you're a brilliant legal mind. We don't pretend to be things that we're not. We're not data analysts.

So what we'll do is we'll go out and we'll find the people who are actually focusing on the data to break it down for us. That's all we do. It's a novel concept. Right? Unbelievable. Very novel. Very novel concept.

And Brett, you see what the media is doing today too, because they fall right back into their same old traps, which is why we have to continue just to grow this platform. Because what do you hear today? Ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis is so great. What Ron DeSantis did. Do you hear the media talking about Gretchen Whitmer, the Democrat who crushed it in Michigan? Do we hear about Josh Shapiro who defeated Doug Mastriano? Or how about Tony Evers in Wisconsin or Wes Moore in Maryland or Kathy Ockel in New York or Maura Healy in Massachusetts? What about these great Democratic wins in states that it was not foregone conclusions where Democrats won with mandates, not by spreading conspiracy and lies and abducting immigrants and kidnapping people and human trafficking them

with compassion, with truth, fighting for our democracy and our institutions. And I don't hear any of the media talking about that. Oh, DeSantis, is he going to run against Trump? Is Trump going to be DeSantis? No, we need to be talking about the great victory of Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro and all those individuals I mentioned. But that just shows you where they go.

Yeah, which paper was it? I'm sorry, bro. Which paper was it? It said DeFuture. And it was a picture of DeSantis. It was the New York Post. What are they doing? Well, that was the New York Post. And what the New York Post is doing, Geordie, is they're trying to propaganda. They're trying to save their ass in 2024. And they're trying to say, oh, you don't like Trump. What about this guy? Let's put this guy

on a pedestal. I mean, that's all that's all they're doing there. But, you know. The mainstream media, the CNN, I'm specifically kind of talking about CNN because I think there were other networks that got it. Okay. They focus on all of the wrong things. And like today, like when I was looking up, I have like a running feed of the networks in my room. When I was looking at before, they were showing how many voters in the exit polls said they wanted Biden to run for another term. That was the story. That was the focus.

That was what they were focused on at this time. What I think they have difficulty with also is not only getting the accurate data, but understanding the data and analyzing the data that they get appropriately. Like one of the polls that came out yesterday for one of these exit polls, when we told everybody this, we didn't talk about the exit polls at all yesterday because we said, stay away. They're going to lead you down the wrong path. Ignore them. And that's what Tom Bonnier and Simon both told us as well. So that's what we relate to you all. One of the polls that came out yesterday is there was something like, do you like the direction that our nation is going in? And it was something like 78% no, do not like the

direction. And the talking heads were going, this is bad news for the Democrats. The Democrats are in control. You have President Biden is the president, a Democrat. If nearly 80% of people don't like the direction the country is going in, well, that's a really bad sign for the party in charge. And I texted Ben and Jordi immediately in our group chat. And I said, that's such bullshit. I said, guys, if they asked you that question, what would you say? What would you say? And we all had the same answer. I think because of where this MAGA extremist party has taken our country due to the increased threats of violent political, uh, political violence from

these extremists on the far right, we're in a place right now where Americans who are pro-democracy Americans are concerned about the direction our country is headed in. And it's not because President Biden wants to help people out with their student loans. It's not because President Biden is building infrastructure for us and passing things like the CHIPS Act and helping our veterans with the PACT Act. That's not why we're afraid of the future. We're afraid of the future because you have a Supreme Court that's stripping away our rights. We're afraid of the future because you have a Supreme Court that's stripping away our rights. We're afraid of the future because we have a radical right Republican Party who is attacking our freedoms, who instead of trying to propose policy to help Americans is trying to propose policy that strips away the rights of Americans, that bans books, that tells us who we can or cannot marry, who tells us what we can do or cannot do with our

bodies. And that is why Americans look at that question and they go, no, I don't like the direction our country is going in because if those people come to power, we're in big trouble and it's on the borderline of them coming into power. And so I'm happy to see the true silent majority out there in the United States of America, this pro normal, pro democracy side of things rise up and say, we are done with the bullshit. We are done with MAGA. We are done with the extremism. And I think that speaks absolute volumes. I think the Republicans are going to take away all the exact opposite and incorrect lessons from this race as they always do. But I really wish they didn't. I honestly, I mean this. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I wish they were normal. I wish they were

normal even if that meant that we would have a tougher time defeating them in 2024 or in further races. I wish they were normal and they could level with us and they could fess up to lying about the 2020 election. And they could say that they screwed up and these extremists don't represent them and that they want to try to actually come together with Democrats for the good of the American people. But we all know that's not the Republican Party that we're dealing with, unfortunately. But that's why my pitch to all Republican voters, to independent voters, if you don't like the way things are going over there, listen, there's a big tent pro-democracy coalition here. And everybody is welcome in this tent. And we need to grow this tent. We need to

grow this choir. And we need to be singing tent. We need to grow this choir and we need to be singing so loud that our song is heard across the entire United States of America. And that's my pitch to you guys. That was an absolutely brilliant, brilliant pitch, Brett. I agree with 99.9% of everything you said there. The only thing that I want to say is- What's the 0.01? Well, here's the thing, and it might be a different percentage. We're not good at math. That's why we have the data analysts come on and do math for us. CNN specifically, when they're looking at the data, I actually think it's a bit more devious than you let on.

I think it's an intentional misapplication of the data in order to get panic views and panic clicks because they're beholden also to these big corporate interests and these big corporate folks who pay them at the end of the day, who have agendas. So that's why it is important what we're doing here with Midas. And that's what it's important that you do with your platforms that you have as a person. Look, you're your best advocate. You have friends. I'm talking to our listeners here. You have circles, you have family, you have neighbors. I know you want a normal society. And like what Brett said, even if it came to us having a more difficult time running in 2024, if these Republicans actually became more normal,

just think about how much better society would be for everyone at large if these Republicans were just quasi normal. That's why you are the favorite brother, Jordy, for that type of analysis. I don't even think, Brett, that the question about the threat of extremism was on exit polls because I didn't see it. And I think that it was subsumed within the direction of the country. And so the people aren't even being asked the most basic question. So to me, the biggest issues were abortion and the threat of extremism, women's reproductive rights and threats of extremism. And then everyone missed it by not even asking the right question on the exit polls, which by the way, weren't the most best indicator anyway, but people really missed out on the data just because how the

question was framed. I also want to mention that none of this is possible. What occurred so far, the unprecedented results so far, none of this is possible without the tireless work, though, of grassroots organizations, of women, of Gen Z and young voters who really came together and pulled this one off big time. It's really because of your work. And I said this earlier, and I just want to reiterate it again, that I am just so humbled that here at the Midas Touch Network, we could create this platform that helps in any way, amplifies those voices and bring them on this platform. Because there's so many powerful voices out there that the mainstream media has ignored and not listened to and has not given the microphone that we try to feature here and

shed a light on, whether it's on our podcast, through our social media posts, through the work we do together as the Midas Mighty. That right there to me is what makes me most proud, supporting the work of those on the ground, doing the hard work. And also I'm often asked, people say, well, what do you think it is? What is it about Midas Touch that makes it work? How do you get more viewers here than mainstream media people? What are you doing? I said, it's not really what we are doing. We are messengers. We do a lot of listening. We put in a lot of hard work. But the secret that makes all of this work and the only way this works, and you better realize that we know this, each and every day is you. community, a real, authentic, unapologetically pro-democracy community that takes action. I know from the DMs you share and the posts you make, the hard work that you have all

put in, and that when you watch these shows, you gain the information, some of which you may know, some of which you don't. But then you utilize that information to go out there into the field, into the country to spread pro-democracy messages and to make sure our country, wherever possible, rejects the MAGA fascism. And I just want to say to all of you, thank you so much. It makes me just so proud. And it makes me, I wake up every morning just so excited about what I do. It brings me so much joy that I get to spend time with my brothers every single day but that we can share this with you and with all of you out there so i really really really uh appreciate it just wanted to say that ben making a pitch for favorite brother i see what you're doing you're not you're

not being slick you're not being slick no but but to ben's point i mean there there's a reason why i say shout out to the Midas Mighty at every single end of this podcast, because you guys are the secret sauce that keeps this train moving. So thank you for everything and let's keep going. by going to p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com slash Midas Touch. Join one of the memberships there and get access to some of the great exclusive content that's only on Patreon. But most importantly, you can help grow this independent media platform. We have zero, zero outside investors.

We are not funded by anyone, yet alone the millionaires and billionaires who push the both sides media and the pro-fashion media. And guess what? We compete with them. Not only do we compete with them, in many cases, more people watch this and listen to this than them now. And that's because of you. And so I know you subscribe to a bunch of

things, so no pressure if you can't do it. But if you can, go to patreon.com slash Midas Touch, join one of those memberships. It does go a long way. Brett, final words? Final words. Let's sit tight. Votes are being counted. We may not know the total makeup of the House or the Senate today or tomorrow or through the weekend. So sit tight. But we are going to give you all the up-to-date information as we have it. And if you have appreciated our coverage up to this point, in addition to all the things that Ben said, tell a friend. You may have a friend who goes, like, were you shocked? Weren't you shocked by the results? Didn't it stun you? And you could go, you know, not so much. Like I was

a little nervous, but you know, I, I was following the data with Midas touch and they seem to have it right. And they got it right. So, you know, give us a little plug to your friends and family, spread the word, subscribe to the audio podcast. Yeah. But, but other than that, you know, follow along with us. We're going to be giving you the up-to-date information. We're not going to be calling anything before it happens. We're going to make sure that the information is accurate. We're going to wait until we have accurate information before we start making

any calls, which I think is very important in this fast paced age of media. And like, like the brother said, you know, thanks from the bottom of our hearts. Excited for our next live. A lot more videos coming at you today. So make sure to check the Midas Touch YouTube channel for the latest breaking news updates from Ben and from our incredible contributors. Jordy? Love y'all so much. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. At Midas Touch, we are unapologetically pro-democracy,

and we demand justice and accountability. That's why we're spreading our message to convict45. That's right. Gear up right now with your convict45 tees and pins at store.midastouch.com. That's store.midastouch.com.