The NPR Politics Podcast - On Eve Of Election, Virginia Governor's Race Looks Tight

Episode Date: November 6, 2017

Tomorrow is Election Day, and one of the most closely-watched races is the one for governor in Virginia. It's been contentious, it's tight, and it's seen as a bellwether. Also, President Trump's response to Sunday's mass shooting at a church in Texas. This episode: host/congressional reporter Scott Detrow, political editor Domenico Montanaro, and special guest national desk reporter Sarah McCammon. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Hey, this is John, an economic development volunteer out here in the Savannah of Senegal. This podcast was recorded at 1240 on November 6, 2017. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. To keep up with all of NPR's political coverage, check out NPR.org, download the NPR One app, or listen on your local public radio station. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here on Election Eve. There are big gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia tomorrow, and the Virginia race especially is getting a lot of attention and being watched as a sign of whether or not Democrats can counter President Trump at the polls.

We'll get into that with a special guest. not Democrats can counter President Trump at the polls. We'll get into that with a special guest we're excited to welcome back to the pod. And we'll also briefly touch on yet another terrible mass shooting, this time Texas, where 26 people were shot and killed in church. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And I'm Sarah McCammon, former NPR politics regular, now National Desk reporter. How's it going, Sarah? It's good. It's good to be back. You sound so far away. When's the last time you potted with us?

I potted, I believe, soon after the election. I think it's been a while. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've missed you. I've missed you. So, Sarah, you're with us today because you've been covering the Virginia governor's race for a while. It's gotten pretty close, hasn't it? Yeah, it, you know, going into the race, Ralph Northam, the lieutenant governor and the Democratic candidate, he was the favorite for a couple of reasons. You know, Virginia has been turning increasingly blue because of demographic change. Hillary Clinton won last year. President Obama won twice. So, you know, there are a lot of things going for statewide Democrats here. But it has been closer. And the polls lately have been just all over the place with Republican Ed Gillespie doing, I think, better than a lot of people expected.

Of course, where will things end up? We don't know. We'll find out this week. Which is why you should probably not pay attention to the polls. Yeah. How many times have we said that, right? A lot. We're going to talk all about that in a little bit. First, though, we have to talk about another round of just terrible news. It's only been a month and a week since Las Vegas. But yesterday, again, we all saw the horrific details from another mass shooting. This time, a church in the small town of Sutherland Springs, Texas. Twenty six people killed, at least 20 more wounded.

The shooter was a 26 year old white man from Texas. He's now dead. At a press conference on his trip to Japan, President Trump offered his condolences. Then he said this. I think that mental health is your problem here. This was a very, based on preliminary reports, very deranged individual. A lot of problems over a long period of time. We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries. But this isn't a guns situation. I mean, we could go into it, but it's a little bit soon to go into it. But fortunately, somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction.

Otherwise, it would have been as bad as it was. It would have been much worse. But this is a mental health problem at the highest level. Let's talk about the response here, because unfortunately, President Trump has had an opportunity to respond to a whole range of terrible things over the last few months. And he's a little bit different every time. Domenico, what did you make of this response, both the tone and what he chose to focus on? Well, obviously, the big thing here is the fact that he's so subdued and he's talking about

something that's gun related and decides that, you know, now's not the time to really talk about policy solutions. But when it came to the terrorist attack in New York where the suspected terrorist drove a truck and killed eight bikers, he was very quick on Twitter to go after potential policy solutions, wanting to get rid of a piece of the immigration system in this country that the person used to come in, all within hours of the attack happening and both without a lot of detail. Marc Thiessen Sarah, you spent more time last year listening to Donald Trump than any of us. What did you make about this response and how it squares or doesn't square with other ways he's responded to terrible attacks of all ranges?

Yeah, I think there's been a lot of focus on this. And as you say, we've had a lot of opportunities to analyze the president's response to terrible things in recent weeks. And, you know, I think to me, one of the most sort of catalyzing moments in his campaign for the base was back in, what was it, December of 2015, the San Bernardino shooting, remember, where the attackers were apparently, you know, motivated by Islamic extremism. Trump got out right away and said, remember, he said, ban all Muslims from coming into the country. And he got a, you know, cheers and support at the rally where he said that. And here, you know, in the wake of the New York City attack, we see sort of a similar

theme. But when you look at both Las Vegas and Texas, you know, you see a focus on prayer, on mental health. I remember right after Vegas, he said, you know, we pray for the day when evil is banished. This very scripted speech that seemed, you know, kind of to say, well, things are you know, it's a bad world. Things are going to happen, you know, and now it's like, let's you know, let's focus on mental health. Whereas after New York City, he's you know, he's calling for a much more specific and vigorous response. You know, it plays into his narrative. I mean, to be able to say that, you know, he's going to have this hot rhetorical response when it comes to terrorism, you know, plays into what he's been pushing to say that we

need more of a nationalistic approach, more of a protectionist approach to say, keep these people out of the country, whoever those people are who are causing these things. We don't need any of them here. Right. So that was a foundational belief and a foundational principle that President Trump ran on as a candidate. And when it comes to gun violence, that is not something that is going to fire up his base to go and say we have to do something about guns. That's not something that he had a predisposition to believing in the same way that he had toward keeping people out when it comes to terrorism. Sarah, you were one of the reporters who covered the Las Vegas shooting from NPR.

And one thing I was thinking about as we saw all these headlines yesterday, as we got these reports, was that it's been a month later and we're still basically confused as to why the Las Vegas shooting even happened to begin with. Yeah. And, you know, that I did a piece about this, about why it's so important to know why these things happen, because that's always the next question, right, is was it mental health? Was it terrorism? Was it some combination? And, you know, obviously that information helps authorities solve a case and maybe prevent cases in the future. But I think we're seeing that

there are so many reasons why people do these things. We don't always even know why they do these things, but they keep doing them and they keep getting access to guns. And, of course, in this case, you know, someone else had a gun, as President Trump said, pointing in the other direction. But still, 26 people died. So ultimately, you know, everyone wants to know the motive, but it doesn't seem to be getting us any closer to stopping these. And another follow up from the last time this all happened was we did a lot of reporting on a surge in Congress of interest to regulate and possibly ban bump stocks, which were found on the Las Vegas shooter at the time of the shooting. That has since died down and gone basically nowhere. That effort has really fizzled out at this point in time. And that's part of the reason why the NRA, the National Rifle Association, likes to say this isn't the time to talk about these things, because the further away you get

from the actual tragedy, the less likelihood there is of an impetus and an urgency to enact any kind of policy measures that might restrict guns. Yeah. I think Massachusetts has banned bump stocks, but that's the first state. So, yeah, not a lot of action there. And that's the biggest contrast that I keep thinking about, though, as you mentioned before, Domenico, that when a terror attack happens, though, it does seem to be the time for President Trump to talk immediately about immigration changes. Sarah, reporting on the national desk now, unfortunately, you have covered a lot of these types of stories. What can we expect over the coming days as this

plays out in yet another community that's just in shock right now? It's almost like we have a script now. Others have pointed out after a shooting, there's a ready-made hashtag, you know, Vegas strong or Orlando strong or whatever it may be. We've seen vigils. Of course, there's the investigation into the why that always happens and, you know, steps to remember those who died. There's just a long line of funerals that have to take place. And so it's this has become routine in the United States. And you can almost map out what the stories are going to be for the next several days, not to in any way diminish the horrible pain. Every single one of those 26 people's family members are going through.

Because to each of them, this is real and this is fresh and raw. Yeah. Well, we're going to take a quick break here. And when we come back, the big race is to watch tomorrow. It's election day in New Jersey, Virginia and other places. Support for this podcast and the following message come from ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter is committed to helping employers build great companies by making it easy to find and hire top talent. Using advanced matching technology, ZipRecruiter actively connects employers with qualified candidates in any city or industry nationwide. In fact, 80% of jobs on ZipRecruiter get a qualified candidate in just one day. Try it for free.

Go to ZipRecruiter, get a qualified candidate in just one day. Try it for free. Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash Quick Takes. This is Terry Gross, the host of Fresh Air. We have lots of new interviews, including with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, writer Amy Tan, and a sleep researcher about how not getting enough sleep might be slowly killing you. You can find Fresh Air on the NPR One app and wherever you get your podcasts. We are back. And as we said up top, tomorrow is Election Day in Virginia,

New Jersey and other places. We're going to talk here about the Virginia governor's race. Because of when it's held, Virginia's race is usually viewed as a test of whether the political mood is shifting as much as people like us often claim it is. This year, that seems like even more of the case. Still, a statewide race never gets as much attention as a presidential race. And that's something former President Obama pointed out when he stumped in Virginia last month. Yo, during presidential elections, everybody gets all excited. And then when it's an off-year election, suddenly, what, there's an election going on? Huh?

And so as a consequence, folks wake up and they're surprised. How come we can't get things through Congress? How come we can't get things through the statehouse? Because you slept through the election. So, Sarah, you have been covering this race for a while. Give us a quick refresher on who the two candidates are. First of all, Democrat Ralph Northam. He's the lieutenant governor right now.

He is a former army doctor, pediatric neurologist. And that clip we just heard from President Obama was his him campaigning for Northam in Richmond, Virginia, a couple weeks ago. And yeah, it's a tight race. Democrats and Republicans are really trying to get out their base. On the Republican side, we have Ed Gillespie. He's a former lobbyist, a former George W. Bush administration advisor, former Republican National Committee chairman. So he has, you know, a pretty establishment resume. He has run a pretty conservative campaign after the primary. He's moved to the right quite a bit since the primary and has really been making some pretty clear appeals for Trump voters while still trying to

appease the middle. Domenico, what is the best way to describe the polling of this race in recent weeks? Yeah, I mean, I just wouldn't even look at it, to be perfectly honest. I mean, the way I sort of look at this race when I start thinking about it is that this is a state that's trended more Democratic over the years. You know, you've had President Obama won it twice. Hillary Clinton won this state. Remember, obviously, with Donald Trump winning the election, that's pretty notable.

So that tells you where this state is moving. And remember, during the presidential election, Hillary Clinton was supposed to have something of a double-digit lead in Virginia at various points, and she only won it by a few. So to me, there's a three to four percentage point built-in advantage for Democrats. And then you look at the candidates. And frankly, Ralph Northam has not been a very good candidate. He's struggled with a message. There's been a lot of Democratic infighting, which I know we're going to get to. And, you know, you look at that and maybe it brings it back to maybe kind of a 50-50 race with like a tip on the scale to the Democrat. I mean, the fact of the matter is, for me, everything Tuesday night is about the Democrats. All the pressure is on them.

Because if Democrats were to lose in a state where they're supposed to win, then that infighting that we've been hearing about, that fissure is going to be ripped wide open. So hold that thought for a moment. One more question on the race itself. Sarah, the issues that have characterized this race in terms of what the candidates are talking about, in terms of the commercials, we get these ads in D.C. It has been shocking how much they're just about like culture war stuff. Absolutely. And I mean, on the stump, they're both pretty restrained and they talk about the typical things, you know, jobs and education and infrastructure and all the stuff that everybody cares about.

But the ads have sort of taken on a much more divisive tone. Ed Gillespie has been criticized for running ads, you know, focused on this MS-13, you know, the theme of crime by undocumented immigrants, which is, of course, exactly a theme that Trump hit home over and over and over again during the 2016 campaign. Let's pause and listen to that just for a moment. MS-13 appears to be surging again. The dangerous street gang MS-13 are responsible for the recent murder in Bedford County. Those crimes have been increasing around our region. MS-13 is a menace, yet Ralph Northam voted in favor of sanctuary cities that let dangerous illegal immigrants back on the street, increasing the threat of MS-13. Ralph Northam's

policies are dangerous. I'm Ed Gillespie, candidate for governor, and I sponsored this ad for a safer, stronger Virginia. And MS-13 is a violent gang with roots in Central America. Right. And of course, Northam has come back and said, look, I mean, the point that he's made and that President Obama made in Richmond is I'm a pediatrician. I don't want to put your children at risk. Ralph Northam went to VMI and was an army doctor for eight years. In Richmond, Dr. Northam helped pass longer sentences for gang members and mandatory life sentences for violent sexual predators. I'm Ralph Northam, candidate for governor, and I sponsored this ad because I'm a pediatrician. And for Ed Gillespie to say I would tolerate anyone hurting a child is despicable.

But this theme of immigration has been a big deal. And so, you know, he sort of said, look, I'm all for, you know, arresting criminals. But, you know, let's not break up immigrant families, undocumented immigrant families. That's kind of the line from the Northam campaign. But, you know, it's not just immigration. You know, Confederate monuments have been a big sort of culture war issue this year. Of course, you know, we all remember the tragic incident in Charlottesville when a counter protester protesting against a white supremacist protest was killed by a car that drove into the crowd. This was surrounding,

you know, Confederate monument debate. And these debates have popped up again and again this year. And Ed Gillespie was quick to put up on his website months ago his statement that he's not for removing Confederate monuments, nor them has taken the position that local communities should decide. And he supports taking them down if they want to. Anyway, those are just a couple of the divisive issues that keep coming up in this race. And you can really sort of feel that the themes raised by President Trump are still very present. Before we get into the Democrats squabbling tension, I don't know the best way to put it.

One quick question about the Republican side before we talk about that. Sarah, when you talk to Republican voters in Virginia, how do they feel about President Trump? Well, the ones I'm talking to are at campaign events. And so first of all, you have to be a pretty hardcore engaged voter, I think, to in an off year, show up on a weeknight to go to, you know, an Ed Gillespie or Ralph Northam event. So I'll just put that as sort of the practice. That being said, I'm not sure if these are typical voters, but the Republicans I've talked to in the last week, especially have told me, look, I really like what President Trump is doing. I really want Congress and elected leaders to support his agenda.

And even though Gillespie sort of his history, right, is, as I said, a lobbyist and sort of an establishment figure, although he's clearly moved to the right. That doesn't seem to bother the Trump supporters I talk to. They say he's saying the right things and think he will support and implement Trump's agenda. And that that is what these voters are telling me they want. When I was in Fredericksburg last week for a Gillespie rally, I met this woman, Barbara Weimer. She and her husband had come to hear Gillespie and other Republican candidates speak. And, she says she thinks that Gillespie is getting it about right. I know he's staying away pretty much from President Trump, but he's running the kind of campaign right now that President Trump ran. So as she pointed out, you know, President Trump hasn't come to campaign with Gillespie because President Trump is kind of a lightning rod right now. And yet voters like Barbara Weimer are hearing what they need to hear from Gillespie.

And they tell me they feel good about him, Republican voters. All right. So now let's look at the Democratic side. Domenico, you've been talking about this here and there. But just to have it all in one swoop in one place. Why? Why are the stakes so high for the Democrats as opposed to the Republicans tomorrow? Well, because if you're looking at the narrative nationally, it's been that... Which is what we do here. Yeah. I mean, Donald Trump has the lowest approval ratings of any president at the same time since polling began.

All of the momentum is supposed to be against President Trump. It's supposed to be Democrats saying that they're able to somehow take back some chamber of Congress next year. And if they can't do that in a place that's supposed to favor them at this point, that's a real big problem. In a state that has those exact districts where Democrats think that they need to win next year, high education, suburbs, Northern Virginia chock full of politically engaged people. If they don't show up, that would say something. They've failed in a right-leaning district in a special election in Georgia. They've failed in other right-leaning places. And now they have a chance in a place that's more centrist, that usually is a barometer for the country, but now apparently has moved more left. Hillary

Clinton won this state and Donald Trump had lost it and he won the presidency. So this is a place Democrats have to at least be able to show some strength. If they don't, just imagine the kind of infighting and talking and blame game that's going to be going on within the party. Virginia is a good testing ground in many ways for some of the questions about messaging and focus that the Democrats are facing. Right. So on the one hand, you know, it's clear Democrats can't succeed without turning out the progressive energy, younger voters, minority voters. So they've been working on that. But there's this whole question of the rural white voters that in many cases, you know, have been leaving the party for a long time and that Trump in a lot of cases really energized. So, you know, do they pay

attention to those? And Virginia has, it's in some ways, almost like two or three states that are kind of smashed together because you've got Northern Virginia by DC, which as you said, is pretty diverse. And then down where I live in the Virginia Beach area, there's a lot of military. There's also a large black vote here. But then you talk about Southwest Virginia, and that's a lot more like West Virginia. It's pretty white and rural and spread out and, you know, a place that went really strongly for Trump. So who are Democrats aiming toward? Clearly, they have to pay attention to places like Northern Virginia, where most of the population is. And we've definitely seen really both candidates spending a lot of time up there and a lot of time in Richmond as well.

It's been very difficult for Democrats to come up with a unifying message, something that brings together all of those factions that Sarah is talking about. That was something they struggled with during the 2016 campaign. And they do need to figure out what that message is going forward rather than saying they're just anti-Trump. And we talked about infighting. But the fact is, with Donna Brazile, who was the DNC chairwoman who came out with some of these excerpts of her books that are really pretty scathing and explosive. And Scott, you've been doing a lot of

reporting on this and found out a couple extra details. Yeah, there were two big things that Donna Brazile said over the last couple of days that got a lot of attention. In her book, she claims that after Hillary Clinton fainted on September 11th of last year, Donna Brazile... From pneumonia. From pneumonia. Donna Brazile thought about initiating the process of replacing Clinton on the ticket. Brazile said she thought that Joe Biden would be the best replacement. It's got a ton of pushback, obviously.

Among other things, the DNC chair does not have the unilateral right to do that. It would be a long, complicated process. But this was something that really got Hillary Clinton's campaign very angry. chair does not have the unilateral right to do that. It would be a long, complicated process. But this was something that really got Hillary Clinton's campaign very angry. There was an open letter from staffers on Hillary Clinton's campaign, really pushing back against what Brazil claimed there. The other thing that she talked about in this book was that she discovered a memo of understanding signed between the Clinton campaign and the DNC, that in exchange for raising a ton of money for the DNC, which was deeply in debt at the time, the Clinton campaign and the DNC, that in exchange for raising a ton of money for the DNC, which was deeply in debt at the time, the Clinton campaign gained a lot of oversight over the DNC.

They gained say over who would be hired. They gained say over strategic decisions, long-term financial decisions, things like that. Initially, the DNC responded to Brazil's claims saying, well, no, no, we had the same joint fundraising agreement in place with both Bernie Sanders' campaign and Hillary Clinton's campaign. That was true, but we were able to find that this was actually a totally separate document signed in late August of 2015 that gave this control to the Clinton campaign. So basically, you have the Clinton campaign with operational control over the DNC at a time when the DNC is supposed to look like a neutral arbiter. Now, that looks terrible, and that is certainly going to make Sanders fans, including Elizabeth Warren, who said that this needs to be looked at and said that this was rigged, it's going to give them a lot of fuel and a lot of ammunition to say that,

see, it was against us the whole time and we could have never won. Now, we do have to step out from that for a second, acknowledge that, but also say, what can a DNC, what can a party, what can have to step out from that for a second, acknowledge that, but also say, what can a DNC, what can a party, what can the RNC, for that matter, affect? What kind of actual hardcore steps can they actually take to change votes in a primary? That's much more difficult to quantify. And we should point out here, as we've reported the story on NPR.org and on the radio, that Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary by a sizable margin. By four million votes. Four million votes and a lead in

pledge delegates as well. So staffing decisions at the DNC, this was clearly a very bad look for the DNC. Sanders people are rightly angry about this, but it's hard to jump from that to, and therefore Bernie Sanders would one of one, the Democratic primary. Yeah. And looking forward, Scott, I mean, from your reporting, do you have a sense of what this all means? I mean, clearly it underscores the divisions in the party and just the difficulty the Democrats have had in sort of getting a message together and getting on the same page, even when they're, you know, they're up against right now a very divisive president and they still continue to have these challenges.

Does this result in any kind of change in the process or where does this go? I think it does. I mean, Tom Paris is in a tough spot. He's the current chair of the DNC. He was not in charge of the DNC when all of this happened. He was running the Labor Department for President Obama. But Paris has made it a top priority to heal the wounds of the 2016 primary. But the fact is so many Bernie Sanders supporters remain angry at the DNC. They remain skeptical of the Democratic Party as a whole. And when you have a huge chunk of progressive voters that doesn't totally buy your brand, it's a pretty big challenge to heal that and get to a place where you can have these people enthusiastically voting for Democrats.

But Perez before this had rolled out a whole bunch of reforms for the process. He's promised over and over and over again that 2020 will be more open. He announced a bunch of steps that he's going to take. Among other things, he says the TV schedule for the primary debates will be done well before any candidates jump in the race. The one thing that's coming up in the short term that's worth looking at is that the DNC has had the so-called Unity Commission in place for a while. It's people appointed by Perez. It's people appointed by the Clinton campaign and by the Sanders campaign. And they're putting together suggestions on how to change the primary process. So that'll be worth paying attention to what sort of concrete changes could go in place.

Right. All right. We talked a lot about Virginia here. We got into the DNC. Before we go, Domenico, real quick, what is up with the New Jersey gubernatorial race? There's a race in New Jersey. The Democrat there is favored, Phil Murphy, who's a former investment banker on Wall Street and a former President Obama fundraiser. He was the ambassador to Germany. That's kind of the kind of job you get after you raise a ton of money for a presidential candidate who goes on to win. And he's favored over Chris Christie's lieutenant governor. Yeah, Kim Guadagno. Right now, polls are showing a double digit lead there. And what's more telling, perhaps, is that Chris

Christie is one of the lowest, if not the lowest rated governor in the country at this point. And especially after John Corzine's term as governor, after being a Goldman Sachs executive, went so terribly wrong for Democrats that the Democrats put up who but a Goldman Sachs executive to run for governor of New Jersey. And he has a huge lead. Like, I know rich people live in New Jersey, but like there are other people. A few. And with Domenico insulting my home state, that is a wrap for today. We'll be back on Thursday with our regular weekly roundup. In the meantime, keep up with all our coverage on NPR.org, on your local public radio station, and on the NPR One app.

And another reminder, we've got another live show coming up in January in D.C. at the Warner Theater. It's in partnership with WAMU. You can find more information about that and get tickets at NPRpresents.org. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress for NPR. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor, and I was not criticizing New Jersey. Just a little bit. It's okay. Own it. Own it. You're from Queens. Own it. I'm Sarah McCammon, and even my sister, who lives in New Jersey now, criticizes New Jersey because, as you all know, we're from the Midwest, and I am on the national desk. I love Jersey, the Jersey Shore in particular.

Sarah, it was great having you back. We miss you. It's great to be back. Good to talk to you guys. We'll see you soon. We'll see you again soon. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.