The NPR Politics Podcast - It All Comes Down To This — Here's How To Follow The Results

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

In our final podcast before voting concludes, we discuss the small boost Vice President Harris saw in the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. The race is still well within the margin of error, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the final outcome will be close. We also discuss what issues have shaped the race.And we will be live on air and online Tuesday night. Find our coverage at NPR.org in advance of our podcast in the early hours of Wednesday morning.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

If you're a regular listener to the NPR Politics podcast, then you probably enjoy some other NPR podcasts too. With NPR+, you get perks like sponsor-free listening, bonus episodes, early access, shop discounts, and more for over 20 different NPR podcasts like this one. So start supporting what you love and stop hearing promos like this one at plus.npr.org. Hey, it's Sue. And real quick before the show, it has been a wild, exciting, exhausting election season. And here in the homestretch, we want you to know about a few other ways you can keep up with everything happening each day. First, there's NPR's morning news podcast, Up First. That show is recorded before dawn

and out by 7 a.m. Eastern Time each weekday. Often you'll hear one of us from this show on that one. It's the morning podcast that captures the news overnight. Up First, 7 a.m. Second, later in the day, you can find a new episode of Consider This, the podcast where NPR covers one big story in depth every weekday evening. They will be all over this election and its aftermath too. And of course, we will be here for you pretty much anytime there is big news with the context

and analysis you need to understand it. So up first in the morning, consider this in the evening and right here, the MPR Politics podcast each weekday and anytime big political news happens. That is your election news survival kit from MPR Podcasts. Okay, thanks for listening. Here's the show. Hi, this is Nathan in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I just cast my vote in this year's historic election. Now I'm about to perform Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Although the angst of that first da-da-da-da motif accurately describes my anxiety over this election season, I'll still be tuning into the NPR Politics podcast to stay informed. This podcast was recorded at 1-17 p.m. on Monday, November

4th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will have done my civic duty and keep my iVoted sticker on my viola case for quite a while. Okay, here's the show. You know if election 2024 had a soundtrack that might be it. That would be a dun dun dun dun. There's there's always something creepy and exciting about an orchestra warming up. My grandfather was a bassoonist and my mom loves the orchestra, so we would hear it a lot. You always kind of have this feeling of anticipation, just like the election coming up. Low-key bassoonist flex.

Hey there, it's the MPR Politics podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And if you can believe it, this is our last podcast before voting ends tomorrow on Election Day.

And we expect to be back in your feeds in the very early hours of Wednesday morning with an update about where things stand in all the elections. But today on the show, our last takes and a viewer's guide for how to take in the news tomorrow night. But Domenico, first, we have one final MPR PBS News

Marist College poll out. Hit me with the top lines. Well, I think it's really interesting here that Harris is now up to a 51-47 lead among likely voters. But when you look at just registered voters, it's 49-49. So it's really going to depend on how people get out to the polls. Harris is doing better with likely voters

because she's doing better with white college-educated voters, in particular, who are a group that turn out at among the highest rates of any group. So does that hold? I'm going to be curious to see. She also is doing very well, by the way, with black voters. 83% are saying that they're going to vote for Harris after all this talk during the campaign about whether Trump is siphoning off young black men. Right now, this is the highest she's done with black voters. And Latino voters, 61%,

say that they're going to be voting for Harris, which is the best she's done in our survey, yet still a little below where Democrats have been previously with them. This poll, if not all polling leading up to Election Day, keeps telling us the same thing. This is an extraordinary close election. And I wondered to both of you, if at any point you find it surprising that neither candidate has been able to break away in the closing stretch? I'm surprised. We've never had an election this close for this long where neither candidate has

broken away. When you look at the fundamentals of the race, Trump or the Republican should be way ahead. Voters think the country is on the wrong track. The administration is very unpopular. Prices are too high. He is seen as better on the issues that voters care about most like the economy and immigration. But he hasn't been able to break away. And neither has she. That's been surprising. He's got some real character issues, obviously, that a lot of people don't like. He has an unfavorable rating that's above 50% and has stayed there for as long as he's been in the spotlight. And frankly, I feel like I'm, you know, Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, you know, slamming

his alarm clock into the floor because it's just another day and it's exactly the same thing over and over again, and not much changes or moves the needle. But I will say there's been some really important shifts underneath all those top lines. We're in the middle of an American political realignment and sometimes when that's happening, it's hard to see what's actually happening and where we come out on the other side. Right, you have to see that in hindsight.

Historical rules only work till they stop working and we're not gonna know which one stopped working until after all the votes are counted and we can look at the results. But we do know that timing is everything in politics and last minute or last weekend surges are often very important. The final undeciders generally break in one direction or the other. In 2016, they broke for Trump. The Harris campaign thinks that they're breaking for her this time. And that's something that no poll is going to measure.

I think the other thing that's really important in our survey is we asked a question about whether or not you think Harris intends to carry out her proposals or if her promises are basically just politics intended to make people vote for her. We asked the same of Trump, but I want to focus on Harris because she hasn't really been able to close the deal with a lot of people. And I think that this is pretty telling for why. Because people were split 49-49 on whether or not she is sincere in her proposals or if she's just doing it for politics and there is a huge gender split, especially when it comes to white women with college degrees.

67% of them say that she's sincere and that she intends to follow through on these proposals. 67% of white men without college degrees said the opposite. So we see a big gender divide here. It continues to persist across a lot of different questions. And I think that this question in particular tells you a little bit about men in this election and what they think of women leadership.

And what did the poll tell you about how they view Trump's ability to stick to his commitments? They certainly believe that Trump is more likely to follow through on his commitments, but I will say it doesn't necessarily mean that people are intending to vote for him. I mean, 55% said that they think that he is genuine in wanting to follow through on some of his commitments, but a lot of people think those are fairly controversial and very draconian. And that's why you only have 47% saying that they're actually going to vote for him. I also think, and Mara, we were talking about this before the podcast, that yes, the polls look really close now, but what seems like a really close race might not ultimately turn

out to be that way because of something called the margin of error. That's right. I feel every election is like a civics lesson. We get to learn something that we didn't know before about how we elect presidents. Back in 2000, we learned that guess what? The guy with fewer votes can be the winner.

And then a whole new crop of voters learned that again in 2016, the electoral college and the popular vote sometimes diverge and we don't elect our presidents by popular vote. Then we learned a different lesson in 2020 about something called the red mirage and the blue wave, which just simply means that all votes are not counted simultaneously and the person who looks like they're ahead on election night might not look like they're ahead three days later.

So I want to nominate the 2024 civics lesson, something we all learned this year, which is, as you said, the margin of error. These polls have been so close, they're within what we call the margin of error, which means that they could be wrong by four or three or five points in either direction, which means polls don't really tell you that much

when the race is this close. That's exactly right. I always say that I don't really think that horse much when the race is this close. That's exactly right. I always say that I don't really think that horse race polls are the best use of polls because they're not intended to be that specific or predictive. They're best used is to look at issues and attitudes over time and when the middle moves by a significant portion. That's just not happening in this election. And that's why I keep telling people the only thing you really need to know is that it's close.

And I think that the other thing that people should remember is that late deciders are crucial here and could be very important. And the Harris campaign for what it's worth is confident they're feeling more so today than they did a week ago that they're gaining with some of those late deciders. But who knows? We'll find out when the votes are counted. I also would put it to both that this has been a historic and unforgettable election

in many reasons, but not too long ago, Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee and the polling trajectory was going in a very negative way for Democrats before he dropped out. To both of you, do you think it's fair to say that Kamala Harris at at a minimum, has at least made up the ground that Joe Biden was losing? It's unclear she ultimately wins this election, but Democrats are probably in a better footing today than if they would have stuck with Joe Biden. No doubt, absolutely. I totally agree with that.

I mean, Republicans were talking about a landslide. Remember the mood in Milwaukee? They had it in the bag. They were gonna take everything. And then she closed the gap. She hasn't been able to pull ahead with the lead outside the margin of error, but neither has he. There's been one political earthquake in this race, and that's been Kamala Harris getting in. You know, the trend line was certainly heading in the opposite direction for Biden and Democrats after Biden's disastrous debate back in June. And when Harris got in, all of that flipped.

It flipped nationally. It flipped in all of the swing states. And like Mara said, she has not been able to continue that rise, especially after this month of a barrage of negative attacks from Trump and highlighting her past comments and trying to frame her as a San Francisco liberal and all of that. And people are fairly locked in to where they are. All right, let's take a quick break, and more on this when we get back. Studies have shown that elections can spike feelings of stress and anxiety. That's why

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Instead of scrolling mindlessly, engage mindfully with the NPR app. With a mix of on-demand news, stories from this station, and your favorite podcast, you can relax without shutting off your brain. Download the NPR app today. And we're back. And now we won't know for sure what's mattered until our friends at the Associated Press have made a race call. But I'm curious what issues you think have been the most consequential in this race. Obviously, Mara, you already spoke about the economy. Voters have told us over and over and over again.

That's their number one issue, although that can sometimes be a proxy for other issues. But I would first float to both of you how much you think abortion politics are ultimately going to be decisive in 2024. I think it's a huge issue. It's almost as good for the Democrats as immigration is for Republicans. But it's not a silver bullet. What we see, especially in states like Arizona, where there's an abortion rights referendum on the ballot, it's going to pass by curvature of the earth. But Kamala Harris is not reaping the benefits. In other words, there are a lot of women out there, a lot of Republican women who are going to vote for abortion rights and turn around and vote for Donald Trump for president.

I think that's true. And I think that when we look at our poll, for example, you know, abortion rights is a little bit lower on the list of priorities that people have, they say, when they're going to go into the ballot box. But one thing that I really wanted to test was just how salient this issue is beyond something like inflation, because the top two issues that we surveyed on, that people said that they were most concerned about, were preserving democracy, which might be why you hear Kamala Harris making the closing argument that she is, as well as, of course,

the economy and inflation. Vortion rights is further down below immigration. But when you ask it as a second choice and ask people what their second choice is, that really, really pops abortion rights for Democrats in particular. And I think it shows you the depth of what this issue means. And I don't necessarily think of it

just as quote unquote abortion rights, but really women's reproductive rights, because we've seen so many women, unfortunately, caught up in not being able to get miscarriage care, because so much of what is involved with miscarriage care is also involved with what Republicans would see as dealing with abortions. So I think that that's a huge issue and why you see such a divide with women feeling like this is a hugely

important issue. And I do think for a lot of democratic men as well. But also, Domenico, you mentioned that democracy and upholding democracy is a top issue of concern for voters. I think we need to dig into that a little bit more because I think it means different things to different voters when they're talking about protecting democracy in this election. It does. But I thought it was fascinating that three in ten voters said that preserving democracy was top on their list and that

included a significant percentage of independents the same three in ten. About half of Democrats said that preserving democracy was their top issue but so did three in ten independents and that's pretty critical. I mean especially considering that Republicans were much further off saying that they cared more about inflation and immigration and way less about preserving democracy. But you see where and why Kamala Harris is making the appeal she's making in these last few days when it comes to preserving democracy because I think that there's not a single issue that shows just how bright the line is between Harris and Trump.

Are you saying that's when she tries to appeal to Nikki Haley voters or independent voters with talking about January 6 or the fact that he wouldn't accept the results of the election, that's what she has in mind? Those voters care about this. Yeah. And I think that that shows up in the poll too, when you look at not just how many Republicans she's winning, because it's not that many. It's like 6% of Republicans.

But when you look at independent women who might be leaning Republican, right, because there's a lot of independents who used to be Republicans who now identify as independents, she's leading with independent women and trailing with independent men. So when she campaigns with Liz Cheney, the former congresswoman from Wyoming, conservative daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, that's what this is about. Can we also talk about some of the issues that maybe I think dominated the year, but I'm not sure are going to ultimately play a big hand in tipping these final undecided

voters? Mara, I'm thinking about foreign policy, things like Ukraine and Israel. I mean, huge global international stories of huge import. But this didn't feel like a foreign policy election at all. No, but I think it matters around the edges. One thing about this election, you could argue that nothing has mattered. In other words, since Kamala Harris got in and closed the gap, nothing has changed this static, super close race. Not foreign wars, not the economy, not a decisive debate. But around the edges, on the margins, and that's where this race will be decided, foreign policy has mattered. I mean, that's why Kamala Harris is struggling with Arab American voters in Michigan because of the war in Gaza.

So those things do matter in a race this close. I would say every little thing matters a lot. Every celebrity endorsement, every gaffe, every hurricane matters. Yeah, we're gonna have to watch Wayne County in Michigan because, you know, Dearborn, Michigan has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, about 100,000 people there. So you know, you got to remember, Hillary Clinton lost Michigan very narrowly. Joe Biden won it by 150,000 votes, you know, losing potentially tens of thousands of voters in one place that should be going democratic for the most part,

but likely aren't going to this time around, certainly has a lot of Democrats biting their fingernails. And Domenico, I also think too, all year long when we've talked about Donald Trump's legal troubles and how often did we say, you know, 34 felony convictions hasn't fundamentally changed the race, hasn't fundamentally changed the race, but if Donald Trump loses, there's also around the margins some element of American voters who might not ultimately have wanted to have a president of the United States with felony convictions. Yeah. And I think that that's partially about democracy, right?

I mean, I think it all falls under that umbrella of Trump having said nice things about strong men, seemingly wanting to emulate a lot of them and their policies, using this really authoritarian rhetoric in especially recent days and weeks. All of that put together, I think paints a picture for some voters who might have been teetering on the edges about Trump to say, I just can't vote for that guy. At the same time, like Mara said, this is an election where the fundamentals generally are an advantage to Republicans, especially on the economy. Although I will say it's been really fascinating.

Our poll had Trump just with a 50 to 49 advantage over Harris when it came to who was better to handle the economy. So the message that she's been able to put out there about what she wants to do specifically has appeared to close the gap with Trump when it comes to the economy. All right. Last pod before election day. What is your final thought before we start counting the vote?

I do think we need to continue to preach patience here because in 2020, remember, the elections were close in many of those swing states and the race was not called until Saturday for the presidential election. Now it's very possible, as Sue says, that it's done earlier, but it's going to depend on whether or not the margins are further apart. And the House don't expect it to be called for a while. Domenico, I just feel like you and I are often the cynical negative downers on the podcast. So I'm trying to end this election on like a really hopeful, optimistic, maybe we'll

know really soon and it'll all be clear. We might. Let me have that. It might all be perfect. It might all be perfect. All right. And a reminder, we're gonna be live on air tomorrow night. You can listen in the NPR app online at npr.org or of course on the radio on your local NPR member station. And reminder, again, we'll have a podcast for you sometime overnight.

Before we go, I just wanna say a heartfelt thank you to both you, Mara and Domenico, who have been my spiritual guides through much of the year, and to all of our listeners who have made it on this ride with us. It has been one for the books. And if you want to support this work, you can pitch in four bucks a month at plus.mpr.org. You get some perks, but really it's just a way to help us keep doing this work and making it available for free to anyone who needs it. We'll drop a link in the show notes, so please consider clicking through once this episode ends.

All right, that is it for us today. I'm Susan Davis, I cover politics. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason. And in addition to being part of the NPR Outer Borough Caucus with Domenico, I am the senior national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Outer Borough Caucus with Domenico, I am the senior national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. The Bullseye Podcast is, according to one journalist, the, quote, kind of show people

listen to in a more perfect world. So make your world more perfect. Every week, Bullseye puts the pop in culture, interviewing brilliant authors, musicians, actors, and novelists to keep you on your pop culture target. Listen to the Bullseye podcast, only from NPR and Maximum Fun.

You care about what's happening in the world. Let state of the world from NPR keep you informed. Each day we transport you to a different point on the globe and introduce you to the people living world events. We don't just tell you world news, we take you there, and you can make this journey while you're doing the dishes or driving your car. State of the World podcast from NPR. Vital international stories every day.