The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Outstanding Races

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

Republican nominee Blake Masters lags incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona, as we wait for that race to be called. GOP election officials there have decried Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake for spreading conspiracy theories about the vote counting process.And Democrats notched historic wins in statehouses and governors mansions. We talk through some notable races.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Ximena Bustillo, state politics reporter Laura Benshoff and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Zach from Brooklyn, New York. This is Chinesa calling from Kansas City, Missouri. This is Noah in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. This is Chris, and I am up exceedingly early to get ready to work the polls here in Kentucky. It's about 4 a.m. here on Election Day. It's about two hours till sunrise, but I'm already at my polling place. This is Ian, and the polls are open here in Cincinnati. Today's show was recorded at...

12.07 p.m. on Friday, 11.11 Veterans Day. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. This is Anna Saul in Barrington, Rhode Island. I'm 18 years old, and I just finished voting for the very first time. This is Rachel from Utah, and I'm standing under my umbrella in the rain in the longest line I've ever seen to vote. This is Rachel from Worcester, Massachusetts, where I was number 38 at my local voting precinct. This is Charlotte Young. And this is Mary Morris Young.

And we're here in Columbus, Georgia. Charlotte has been coming with me to vote since she was two weeks old. And I'm really excited to cast my own ballot for the first time today. Okay, here's the show. All right, I'm almost like tearing up. It's the cool. Because they're engaged in the process, either being poll workers or voting. It's just wow. Okay, I'm verklempt. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ximena Bustillo and I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. We are still waiting on the results of the Arizona and Nevada Senate races. Alaska too, though the top two candidates

are both Republicans, so that wouldn't affect the balance of power. There are also governor's races in Arizona and Nevada. Domenico, you send these emails around the newsroom a few times a day updating on where things stand and they are so clear and so helpful. Can you do like the podcast version of that? That's good, because I'm not sure that in my head, everything's clear, but that's good that

they're coming across that way. And just to let people know that is being updated constantly on NPR.org as well in our Where Things Stand post. But right now, what we're essentially seeing is that we're still watching Arizona and Nevada as the two big Senate races here. If Democrats win both, then control of the Senate won't be decided by Georgia on December 6th. It's possible. Today we're going to be looking for another tranche of ballots coming out of Arizona and Nevada sometime after 9 p.m. Eastern time. A lot of those votes are in-person election day drop-offs. So in other words, those could be some Republican ballots. So people are kind of waiting

to see how much of a percentage of that that Blake Masters, the Republican there, gets because he's 115,000 votes behind Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent. So he needs a significant share, something like two-thirds of those votes that are remaining to be able to win there. But there are hundreds of thousands of votes still left in Arizona. Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, the Democrat's behind by about 9,000 votes now. There is a path for her to win. There's about 10% of the vote that's remaining. And a lot of the vote that's coming from drop boxes has not even been counted yet. So that's where a lot of people think that a lot of

the Cortez Masto vote might come from. But this is going to be very, very close. In the House, Republicans still need seven seats to pick up the House. We are waiting on a lot of West Coast districts. There are about 5 million ballots in California alone that have not yet been counted. So this is going to come down to be pretty close, but looks like Republicans are probably on track to get somewhere between a one and seven seat majority. Jimena, you are in Arizona this week. You've been there all week watching this unfurl. How are things going there? Yeah, I mean, it does naturally take a long time to count all these ballots, particularly in

Arizona, a state that has historically had pretty high rates of mail-in ballots, even from the Republican side. They're the ones that pushed for mail-in ballots in that process many years ago. Now, as Domenico said, we are waiting on a lot of those dropped-off ballots to be verified, their signature checked. Then they have to go through a bipartisan processing board, which is a team of two people that check the ballot, and then they go into tabulation. And that all just simply takes time. And we've all been talking about how different states and sometimes even different counties have different election rules and processes. And that's something that here in Arizona is a little bit unique. They have the ability to allow voters to bring the ballot that

was mailed to them and still drop it off on election day instead of mailing it in earlier or turning it in before election day. And so now we have 290,000 dropped off ballots that still need to be counted. So in all of the results that we've seen so far, it hasn't even included that batch. And we expect to see some of that perhaps released today, definitely into the weekend. And that is statewide or is that in Maricopa County alone? Great question. That is only in Maricopa County. And it's not like Maricopa County is particularly behind. It is the largest county. It includes Phoenix, has the largest share of voters. But Pima County, the second largest, still also has about 100,000 left as well.

Do we have any sense of whether those are more Democratic ballots, whether those are more Republican ballots? Maricopa County is not some great liberal bastion. It has traditionally until very recently been quite Republican. Yeah, that is true. And it's really hard to tell, like, unless we get those results, it's really hard to predict. Many in the Republican camp are making the argument that those ballots are what's going to tip the scale, specifically because they told people to vote on election day, to not mail in their ballot, to not vote early. Because of the spinning of some of these election conspiracy theories, they were like vote on

election day. And that could easily mean people dropping off their ballot on election day itself. But you're right that Maricopa County is not just this liberal bubble, this liberal hub. It does include Phoenix, which does lean pretty blue, but includes other parts that lean solidly red. You know, and it's funny because Democrats have been saying the same thing. They've been saying since the beginning of when votes started coming in that the votes in Maricopa County toward the end may shift toward Republicans because of that in-person vote. And Maricopa County, I mean, just to put in context here, just how Republican it has been in past years, I mean, it's changed quite a bit.

President Biden winning it in 2020 was the first Democrat to do so since at least 1948. But the one thing that's going to help Mark Kelly here most likely is that because of those 100,000 or so votes that are out in Pima County, that's one of the bluer counties in the states where Tucson is. And he's been winning there at a 62 percent clip so far. Here's the thing that's a little confusing to me, Jimena, is that there have been implications, if not outright statements, though I think there have at least been some outright statements from some Republicans on the outside saying like they're slow walking it. Maybe they're trying to commit fraud. Maybe something's fishy going on here. We know this is all part of the normal process, but like, couldn't these be the ballots that help their candidates win? Right. These could be the ballots that help their candidates win, which is why they're making

claims that this is being slow walked, slow rolling, that election officials are picking and choosing what to release, even though that's not necessarily true. Election officials in Maricopa County told reporters last night that they do a first in, first out basis. So they're counting these ballots as they receive them. So the Tuesday ones were naturally going to be some of the last ones released. And they're also kind of a little frustrated with the notion that this is a slow process. It's important to remember that counting ballots and calling elections are not necessarily the same thing. So the counting of ballots has always taken a little bit of a long time. It's always taken multiple days,

even if elections have been able to be called by media organizations a lot sooner. And that is something that one of the top officials, Bill Gates, really focused in last night, specifically addressing some comments from GOP gubernatorial candidate, Kerry Lake, about this being a slow process. And quite frankly, it is candidate, Kerry Lake, about this being a slow process. And quite frankly, it is

offensive for Kerry Lake to say that these people behind me are slow rolling this when they're working 14 to 18 hours. So I really hope this is the end of that now. We can be patient and respect the results when they come out. This Bill Gates is not the software executive. Is he a nonpartisan official? He's actually not. He is a Republican official. And a lot of the members on the elections board are Republican. So that is also another key detail here as well, is this isn't some sort of conspiracy from the left.

It's not being driven from the left. There are a lot of bipartisan members counting ballots. And a lot of the people overseeing this are Republican themselves. All right, it's time for a quick break. We'll have more in a second. Jimena, we are going to let you go for now. See you soon. But then we will bring you back for Can't Let It Go. And we're back with NPR's Laura Benchoff. Hello there. Hi, Tamara. So you have been covering state-level politics this midterm, and we've been talking about how Democrats outperformed the typical midterm pattern at the federal level, even if they still might lose control of Congress. But the party did quite

well at the state level. Let's start with governor's races. Yeah, that's right. I don't want to go into all 36 races that we had this week, but Democrats were able to fend off some really tough challenges. You know, they were up for reelection for governor's offices in states that Republicans totally dominate, places like Wisconsin and Kansas. And, you know, they were up for reelection for governor's offices in states that Republicans totally dominate, places like Wisconsin and Kansas. And, you know, they were able to to hold off those challenges. So in Wisconsin, you saw Tony Evers winning reelection in Kansas, Laura Kelly. And that's interesting because Trump actually won Kansas twice. And yet here they are sending another Democrat, you know, re-upping her term.

And the Democrats were also able to take some open offices that could have gone the other way. There was a really close contest in Oregon that was actually just called yesterday. Now, Oregon is a blue state. That's not super surprising. But Democrats also took an open seat in Pennsylvania, which is pretty purple. And that's significant because this was a pretty uneven matchup. had a moderate democrat josh shapiro sitting attorney general running for the democratic ticket on the republican side you had an election denier doug mastriano he's a state senator who's pretty far to the right on topics like abortion and he also worked to overturn the 2020 election and so if he had won you know he

would have been able to appoint the state's top election officials. So this race, you know, holding off a Republican in Pennsylvania is another big win for Democrats, not just in this state, but also in terms of, you know, election integrity. Where's it going to look like Democrats wind up in the balance of power for state legislative chambers, you know, compared to Republicans? That's a good question. These are some of the slowest races to come back, because they're so small, and they can come down to so few votes. But we are looking at about four new Democratic trifectas. So Democrats were able to flip, we think both chambers in Michigan, actually, the AP called this, so we don't have to say we think anymore. And that's a really big deal. They haven't controlled the Michigan Senate

in about 40 years. And Michigan also reelected Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. So now she'll have a much easier time enacting her agenda. Democrats also flipped a chamber in Minnesota. So they have a trifecta there. Um, and they were able to switch some governors, flip some governor seats in Massachusetts and Maryland to get trifectas there as well. So you're going to have more states where Democrats control basically all the like levers of lawmaking. They can pass the laws and they can have a governor sign the veto.

Um, and you know, I mentioned Pennsylvania already had a significant change in the governor's office, but Democrats also believe that they've flipped a chamber in Pennsylvania. That hasn't happened in a decade. And that'll really set up a different dynamic in the Keystone State where instead of having a governor that's doing battle with the legislature and not really able to effectively, you know, make his policies happen, you know, they'll have a chamber, the Democrats will have a chamber, and they'll be able to maybe make some different things happen in the state. So like he could sign bills instead of vetoing them. Exactly. And his budget won't just be a fantasy. Every, you know, year that it gets introduced,

it'll be a very different environment. It's really fascinating to think about what's happened in the state legislative races for where democratic power kind of is holding up or where they've gained a bit. I mean in the Midwest, for example, I mean being able to do what they did in Michigan. I mean let's just think about big picture what's happened in Michigan. You had armed people go to the Capitol. You had extremists try to plot to kidnap the governor of the state. It's hard not to see how, number one, abortion rights, which was used heavily by Democrats there, and this lurch toward extremism and anti-democratic moves, how those didn't fire

up Democrats and really cost Republicans. So we're talking about trifectas, you know, like single single party control of the levers of power in a state. For years, as we have been talking about that, we have been talking about Republicans. looking at potentially getting veto-proof majorities, where they could have then been able to offset a Democratic governor, for instance, and it didn't end up happening. Yeah, that's right. I mean, they were really gunning for a couple of places, Wisconsin and North Carolina, to be able to just essentially cancel out the Democratic governor in those states. And they couldn't pull it off. You know, the Republicans did take one chamber in Wisconsin, but not the other.

And so you have the governor there, Tony Evers, who's, you know, been vetoing like crazy. He's going to be able to keep doing that. He's vetoed everything from cuts to unemployment to bills that would have expanded gun rights to, you know, education voucher bill so that students could attend private school using public money. You know, he's going to be able to keep doing that. And it's really it's the same story in North Carolina. Republicans were very, very close to gaining a veto proof majority in both of those chambers. They have it in one. They don't have it in the other. You have a, you know, Democratic governor there who wasn't up for election this year. He's, you know, safe and still there, but he will be able to keep vetoing bills as well. You know, he's vetoed abortion restrictions while he's been in office. He's vetoed a bill that would

have dropped a requirement for people who buy a gun to get a permit from a sheriff. You know, he might not be able to actually do the things he wants to do or do Democratic agenda items, but he will at least be able to negotiate with the legislature or be a check on their power. You know, when I was in North Carolina doing some reporting last month, I was outside of a polling place, and there were a lot of volunteers, they're Democratic, you know, volunteers for the county Democratic Party, for instance. And they were extremely focused on the state legislature, which is interesting, because typically all the focus is on the top of the ticket. But they felt that the stakes were just so incredibly high. And in

fact, the stakes were quite high. And ultimately, the Republicans came up short of what they had been aiming for. Yeah, by one seat. You know, they almost got it, but not quite. Domenico, we have talked for years on this show about, you know, Democrats sort of underinvesting in the legislative level races, underinvesting in the states and focusing so heavily on Congress and the White House. Did something change this time around? Well, there was certainly a lot more money that was poured into these races from outside groups, for example, Democratic outside groups who really hadn't played very heavily previously spending,

you know, some $60 million or so. There were still a lot of Republican outside groups spending money as well. So it's not just that. I think that what's really important to realize here is that these gains are significant because they could indicate a bit of a turning of the tide where Republicans – in 2009 is when things really shifted. Democrats had the majority of state legislatures across the country until then, and then a lot of GOP investment went into these races. Democrats had really ignored them largely, and Republicans have really had dominance in the state legislatures for the past 13 years or so. So this is a really significant moment.

Laura, I want to end on policy. Do you have any sense of what this could mean, like in a Michigan or a Pennsylvania? What this change in state-level power dynamics might mean for state-level policy? Yeah, I'm really excited to look at what's going to happen in Michigan. I mean, the change there was so incredible. And you had state Democratic legislative leaders kind of right out of the gate as they saw that they were going to have control of the legislature and the governor's office, start tweeting about things that they wanted to do things like repealing, you know, the right to work law in Michigan, tackling gun laws and other Democratic priorities. And so I think it'll be interesting to see in these places where there has a big change, how quickly the landscape is going to change and how quickly they're going to

be able to start moving on some of these policies that were pretty unimaginable before Tuesday. But the other thing I think to focus on here is we've talked a lot about Democratic gains, but Republicans still control a majority of state legislative chambers and state legislatures. You know, doing better than expected if you were not expected to do very well does not necessarily change sort of the underlying dynamic that we have here. Republicans still dominate at the state legislature. They still have more trifectas. They're still able to enact their agenda in a pretty totalizing way in much of the country. All right, NPR's Laura Benchoff, thank you so much for catching us up on all this. Thank you so much for having me. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, it is time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And so is Ximena Bustillo.

Hey there. Hey. And it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, the part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about, talking about, politics or otherwise. Mine is sort of politics and otherwise, I guess. It is my Can't Let It Go is the absolute and total implosion of Twitter. Yeah. It is a dumpster fire. It's always been a dumpster fire.

So what's beyond that? It is an uncontrolled dumpster fire that seems to be moving outside of the bounds of the dumpster. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Ever since Elon Musk bought it for like $44 billion and said he was going to make it a better place, it has been a worse place. They did a thing where they went to make people's names permanent so that, you know, to try to get around spoof accounts and, you know, other things like that. And just for instance, the singer Doja Cat,

unfortunately for her, changed her name to Christmas right before that rule was implemented. So she's just Christmas. So that's permanent? I mean, like, is anything permanent with Twitter right now? Who knows? And then, Ximena, you pointed to something that is, like, another unintended consequence.

They came out with this Twitter blue thing where you could, for just $8, get a blue checkmark. I guess it was supposed to democratize blue checkmarks, but instead it basically meant that for just $8, you could create a fake account that looked real. Yeah, and that happens with candidates right now, which... What a disaster. How do you trust anything even more?

And you already couldn't trust the internet. It is super messy. I would say earlier this month, I chuckled when I read the headline for Catherine Rampell's Washington Post story about this. And the headline was, World's Richest Man Decides to Set $44 Billion on Fire. It's burning. Okay. man decides to set $44 billion on fire. It's burning. Okay, actually, update. Doja Cat was allowed to change her name again. And our producers tell us that she changed it to Fart. That is brilliant.

I mean, my son's gonna love this. Now he's gonna listen to the pod this week. Domenico, what can't you let go of? Something a little more escapist than that, I would say. Getting away from Twitter, closing it down and taking myself, you know, in thought at least, visually to Italy. And that's because I have watched every episode of Stanley Tucci's Searching for Italy. By my last name, you might, and the number of vowels in it, you might surmise that I might be of Italian ancestry. You'd be right. And the last episode was on the region Puglia, which is where my family is from. So it was really great. And it felt like

kind of going home a bit to see all of the olive trees, the great bread that gets made there, the burrata that gets made there. That's awesome. And it just was great. The one thing I'm a little concerned about is that CNN supposedly is going to be cutting back on their documentaries. And I just kind of hope this isn't one of them. Yeah. That's yum. Ximena, what can't you let go of? Speaking of yum things, Alexander Tominsky, a man in Philadelphia,

has eaten 40 rotisserie chickens in 40 days. That's one a day. Why? When asked why it is that he was doing this, he said, it just felt right. But it's really, really gotten the city of Philadelphia rolling. They're out there cheering for him. You know, I think they just faced some pretty difficult sports losses and they really just turned out because they needed something to support. Three, two, one. Chicken man. Chicken man.

Chicken man. Chicken man. Chicken man. Chicken man. Chicken man. This is like the marathon version of competitive eating. It's not that he ate 40 chickens in 40 minutes like Joey Chestnut would do. I don't understand. I know the Phillies lost the World Series

and Philadelphians needed something to cheer about, but this? This is your great victory, rotisserie chicken. To be fair, I don't think he was speed eating this chicken. No, be fair, I don't think he was like speed eating this chicken. I think he's just a man. Yeah, he's just a man who eats a chicken. That's just what he says. And I can respect that. Not a good healthy diet. I do love some good rotisserie chicken though. So maybe. Yeah, then don't eat 40 of them because you probably would never want to eat rotisserie chicken again.

All right. That is a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Mathani Maturi. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Murrell. Thanks to Krishna Dev Kalimer, Brandon Carter, Lexi Schapittle, Juma Say, and Catherine Swartz. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

I'm Ximena Bustillo, and I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.