The NPR Politics Podcast - The Center Of The Political World (Georgia) & Future Of Democracy

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

In a live show on Thursday, October 20th, at the Buckhead Theater in Atlanta, political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Tamara Keith and White House correspondent Asma Khalid discussed Georgia politics and the future of American democracy with WABE reporter Rahul Bali, GPB reporter Stephen Fowler, voting correspondent Miles Parks and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.View the slides we refer to during the show: https://bit.ly/3VGs3WeSupport 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

Hi, my name is Elena Moore, and I am recording the NPR Politics Podcast live at the Buckhead Theater in Atlanta. This podcast was recorded on Thursday, October 20th at 825 p.m. Eastern. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. All right, here's the show. Hey, everyone. This is the NPR Politics Podcast live. Come to you from the Buckhead Theater. I'm Asma Khalid.

I cover the White House. I'm Tamara Keith. I also cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Raul Valle. I cover Georgia politics for WABE News. I'm Stephen Fowler, and I also cover Georgia politics for Georgia Public Broadcasting. And we are here in Atlanta, Georgia. And thankfully, we've got a lot more folks today watching us in the audience, helping us make a podcast than we normally do when we sit in our silent little studio. So let us get into the show. There has been a lot happening politically here in Georgia.

I will say it has sort of kind of become the center of the political universe here in the United States. So I want to get started with you, Raul. You've lived in Georgia for a long time. You've covered politics for a long time. What's it been like watching your own home state become the epicenter of politics? Exhausting. I mean, I think we now understand and know what the people in Florida and Ohio felt like for years. You know, the visits, you know, the people.

You know, last night, I was at an event for Raphael Warnock with Lin-Manuel Miranda. We didn't have big celebrities coming just a few years ago. And the number of presidential visits. You know, I think back, for those of you who are in this theater and have been from Atlanta, this used to be called the Roxy. And John Kerry held an event here 18 years ago. And I think it was just one of a handful of events.

Now, of course, presidential candidates, they come multiple times, and surrogates and celebrities, they just, they come all the time now. Yeah, I mean, it is a little strange having, I say, the black hole at the center of the political universe be right here in Georgia. Great for job security, though. Absolutely. But it is interesting because Georgia and the politics of Georgia so much represent the way our countries change for the better, and in some cases the worst, in the last decade or so. I mean, I grew up just south of Atlanta in a place that when my dad was growing up, it was majority white, rural Republican farmland. And by the time I graduated high school, it was upper middle class, black,land. And by the time I graduated high school,

it was upper middle class, black, Democratic suburbia. And I have a handy dandy chart, which is going to be interesting to talk about in a radio format. If you look at the numbers of several metro Atlanta counties over the years, and how they change in their Democratic vote share, this is why we're having this conversation. Because you have a huge influx of people moving into metro Atlanta for jobs in the tech industry, the film industry, and other things like that, and bringing Democratic-leaning voters with them. There are several key counties here that drastically changed from 2012 to 2020. Places that were

reliable Republican bastions that brought people like Newt Gingrich into the political fold are now heavily Democratic strongholds like Cobb County and Gwinnett County. So there's just a ton of growth here, a ton of exciting political stories, and I'm so glad to be able to talk about them. So speaking of some of those changes, there are a couple of really big, exciting races I think that some of us nationally have been focused on. I want to ask you both about them, and let's start with asking about the governor's race. This election is a rematch between Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, and Stacey Abrams, a Democrat. And so, Raul, for those of us who are unfamiliar, maybe with Georgia politics,

can you give us just a quick recap on who the candidates are? So it's a bit of a flashback to four years ago. Let me take you back to election night. Brian Kemp ends up winning 1.97 million votes, Stacey Abrams 1.92, 55,000 vote separation. You know, Governor Kemp avoids a runoff by 0.2%. It's that close. I remember leaving, you know, Stacey Abrams' headquarters at 3.30 in the morning. We didn't have a result yet. And just for people to know, Brian Kemp was the Georgia Secretary of State, which oversees certain business licenses and elections in the state of Georgia. Stacey Abrams was the minority

leader in the Georgia House of Representatives. So these were two names that Georgians already knew back then. As for what's happening now in this race, Governor Kemp's running effectively and leadingly on what he did in the past four years. He's laid out a few things of what he wants to do the next four years, but when you're on the campaign trail, he's talking about the past four years. And the leading thing is how quickly he reopened the state of Georgia in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. And a little bit of insight of what I see on the trail. We'll be in a church, and he'll talk about how quickly those churches reopened.

He'll be in a small business, and he'll talk about how quickly those places opened. In terms of other things, he's nationalized inflation, the economy, you know, those issues, and gas prices, just like you've seen in other parts of the country. Stacey Abrams, during her four years, you know, after her loss, she focused on voting rights. She focused on other issues. Looking at what's happening now, again, you're hearing about voting rights. You're hearing about what she ran on back then and running again, expanding Medicaid here in the state of Georgia. But kind of the big thing, and the thing that you feel the energy when you're at her rallies or you're at her campaign stops, is what's happened with abortion, with the overturning of Roe and Georgia's new abortion ban kicking in. So that's the big thing. And I do

have to mention there is a libertarian candidate. He made a pretty big splash at the Atlanta Press Club debate, blasting the governor for he should have never even closed anything down in the state and blasted Stacey Abrams over guns. He's an important person because to tell our audience nationally, the state of Georgia, you have to win 50% plus one or there's a runoff. Just a reminder, you guys remember what happened two years ago. Both Senate races ended up going to runoffs because neither candidate, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, got the necessary votes. So those are the characters that we have. Yeah, and the governor's race is obviously going to be very exciting to watch.

But the other key race in the state of Georgia is the Senate seat. Republican Herschel Walker is trying to unseat the Democratic incumbent, Raphael Warnock. And Stephen, a lot of this race so far seems to be involving the personal drama around Herschel Walker. Absolutely, Asma. It's very much a nationalized race. I mean, Herschel Walker, a legendary University of Georgia football player, lived in Texas up until very recently, came back. He was recruited by former President Trump and Sean Hannity and other top Republicans to come challenge Raphael Warnock, the pastor of MLK's church, Ebenezer Baptist. And it's really been

one of the marquee Senate races because, like Raul mentioned, in 2021, the control of the United States Senate came down to these two Georgia Senate seats. And looking at the math and looking at polling and things, Georgia's Senate race could once again be the deciding factor as to who controls that chamber. And so Herschel Walker is not a typical politician. He's not a politician at all. He's a football player, businessman, spent a lot of time in the public eye doing things other than politics. And in the course of running a major Senate campaign, there have been a lot of revelations about his past. He's overstated a lot of his business record, his academic record. He's made statements

about public policy that haven't really made a whole lot of sense. So he's really been dogged by a lot of controversies throughout the campaign. Even still, Georgia is a very competitive state. And what we've heard a lot from Republicans in these closing weeks is that at the end of the day, despite the controversies, despite being rough around the edges, that Herschel Walker could be the 51st Republican Senate seat for them. So that's why you're seeing a ton of big names come down here and campaign for him, despite him maybe not being the best candidate to unseat Raphael Warnock. So I want to ask you both, actually, about something that, and I will say, I will preface

this by saying polls are polls and, you know, they ebb and flow and sometimes they are wrong. But we love them. But they give us a data point and a helpful understanding of where things are. And so right now it does seem that Governor Brian Kemp is doing better in the polls than Republican Herschel Walker is doing. And so that does suggest that some people might be splitting their tickets, right? Like there are some people who might be saying, I'll vote for Brian Kemp for governor, and I might vote for the Democrat, for Raphael Warnock for senator, or maybe they will leave the Senate seat blank, or they'll do something else. And I will say covering politics, I kind of thought these

split ticket voters were a bit of a unicorn. I did not think they still existed until I came out here and started doing some interviews in the Atlanta suburbs, and I met a handful of such people at early voting sites. And so, Raul, what do you think is going on? I want to give credit because kind of the first reporter to kind of pick up on this is my WAB co-worker, Sam Greenglass, who was starting to find these Camp Warnock voters, the same ones that you found when you started, you know, checking out our suburbs. What I was, and these voters, there's a couple of things that are going on here. You've got a handful of Democrats who are like, I'm okay with what Governor Kemp has done.

You know, they're okay with how he handled COVID and has handled other issues. Then you've got a handful of Republican voters. What I keep running into, Republican voters who are happy about Kemp, happy about the vast majority of the ballot, but are uncomfortable about Herschel Walker. And I have seen them in the past skip a race.

We saw that in a congressional race that I covered here back in 2012, where Mitt Romney won a district, an Augusta, Georgia-based district, but the congressional candidate lost because so many conservatives were uncomfortable and just skipped the race. So that's what we're seeing.

There's a couple of different factors here, but you're right, the polls have been all over the place, but the one thing I keep noticing, Brian Kemp is getting this certain percentage of Republican and conservative voters, 93, 94, 95 percent. Herschel Walker keeps getting like 84 to 87 percent. It's a big difference. It's like 10 percent. It is a massive difference, especially in a state where, you know, races could be decided by 10,000, 20,000, 100,000 votes. That's the reason those gaps are so important. And those are also gaps that I'm watching between Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock as well. So, you know, this idea of splitting your ticket is not necessarily limited

to Georgia and presumably Democrats who are running for Senate in other states are hoping to do this as well. And so beyond the state of Georgia, I'm curious what you're seeing in other states. So here's the thing about 2022. It's super weird. Yes. You know, a lot of the rules and the history and the precedents that we rely on in the past to tell us about future elections, they're not like fitting. I feel like a lot of this election is trying to like pound the square peg into the round hole. And I think that ticket splitting, which we thought, you know, we talk all the time, polarization, polarization. So how are we talking about ticket splitting? One of the things that's unique, I think, to 2022 is a problem with candidate quality. I mean, you're only really considering splitting your ticket if a candidate for the party that you normally would like to

vote for is pretty unpalatable to you. I think by any normal measure, Herschel Walker is not a great candidate for the United States Senate. These are, in normal other years, this is not the kind of candidate that any major party would not only support, but support as aggressively as the party supporting him here. And I think you're seeing this play out in other degrees in other states. You know, if Mehmet Oz, Dr. Oz, has a chance in Pennsylvania, he's going to need some crossover appeal by the Democrat at the top of the ticket for the governor's race, who's kicking the crap out of the Republican, who's the nominee there. Tim Ryan, a Democrat who's kind of made it an interesting race in Ohio, although, you know, it's still an uphill battle, is going to rely on people

voting for Governor Mike DeWine and voting for him if he has a chance. So J.D. Vance, again, another Republican candidate who, you know, isn't exactly the kind of candidate that Republicans have been super enthusiastic about. I think one of the reasons why Democrats are still in the fight, and a lot of these competitive races are going to be dogfights till the very end, is that Republicans put up a lot of flawed candidates. And I think if you had more states like Pennsylvania, like Georgia, like Ohio, where they had put up sort of traditional standard Republican candidates, these races, the dynamics in these races could be a lot different. Part of what's fascinating about 2022 is it is going to kind of tell us where the country's going. I mean, I know you start talking 2024 and people start groaning, but like if all of these Trump candidates win these elections,

well, that tells you something about 2024. And conversely, if they all lose, that might actually tell us about the direction of the party too. But there's a dynamic here in Georgia that's different. And that is the lack of the Trump effect now. Very good point. I don't hear his name on the campaign trail, even by the two candidates endorsed by him that are still in, Lieutenant Governor candidate Burt Jones and obviously Herschel Walker. You don't hear Donald Trump's name on the campaign trail brought up at all by candidates or even by voters. You just don't hear it anymore because the vast majority of those candidates got routed, not beaten,

routed here in Georgia back in May. So that dynamic is, you know, people keep asking me about that when I make appearances, you know, outside of Atlanta. And I keep saying, no one's talking about Donald Trump here. It's just a different dynamic here.

But didn't Kemp also prove that, like, there is a path to winning a Republican nomination and not just being ambivalent about Trump, but being anti-Trump? Yeah, well, I wouldn't necessarily call him anti-Trump. I would say at an arm's length, at an arm's distance. I mean, Georgia contains multitudes, like a lot of states. But you have Republicans in Georgia that fully embrace Trump

and that are still in relatively good positions of power, like Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. But then you have people like Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who was endorsed by Trump, kind of swept into office by Trump in 2018, and has basically been successful by avoiding Trump, not poking the bear, not aggravating Trump by going directly in his face, but also not necessarily shying away from his voters. And so, you know, in Georgia, with the way we're so closely politically divided, to win as a Republican, you need Trump-supporting base voters, and you also need the more moderate voters. And so one of the storylines that could come out of Georgia is if Brian Kemp represents this model for how to really appease everybody to a certain extent, at least enough to

win. Stephen, I want to ask you about something, though, that Governor Brian Kemp did that I think did alarm some of the Democratic activists on the left. And those were some of the changes to the voting processes here. My understanding is you've done some reporting that takes a look at the voting turnout so far that doesn't really suggest that at least to date the voting turnout's been impacted. Well, yes and no. Voting is complicated and nuanced, and there's not really a lot of space for that in today's political environment. I mean, Georgia had a 98-page election law that was signed last year that changed virtually every aspect of elections in Georgia. Some things that you see, like absentee voting restrictions or changing dropbox availability, some things you don't see, like

requiring elections officials to do more work on the front end and back end of elections. And so depending on how you look at it, you could tilt your head to one side, point to a couple pages and say, look, we're expanding voting access. This is great. Or you could tilt your head the other way, look at a couple other pages and say, wow, this is really bad and it's making it harder to vote. And the numbers, I think, don't necessarily tell the full story on the surface. We have seen record for a midterm early voting turnout, 100,000 plus people a day, every day this week showing up, which is huge for a midterm. And some people are saying, look at that. That's not voter suppression. It's record turnout. Our voting law is so good. But the argument that Democrats like Stacey Abrams and voting rights groups make is that

just because it's record turnout doesn't mean the voting law is keeping it from even more record turnout. I mean, absentee voting in Georgia was huge in the pandemic. Elections officials, including the Republican Secretary of State, made it easier for people to vote by mail and vote from home because of the pandemic. That's an anomaly. Most people in Georgia vote during our three-week early voting period. And so the voting patterns are shifted back to where they normally were. It's kind of the chicken and the egg situation, though, because the voting law made it harder to vote absentee. So fewer people are voting absentee. But fewer people are voting absentee to begin with.

And so it's kind of hard to say. But all of that, I guess, long-winded way of saying is that voting is complicated. And both sides, we can just edit that down for the podcast. Stephen, voting is complicated. Next question. So I've got one more question for you all before we take a quick break. And that is that one concern I've heard from some of the voters that I was interviewing here in the Atlanta suburbs that was distinct from something I've heard from voters in other states is this concern about the health of democratic institutions. You know, Herschel Walker only recently acknowledged that Joe Biden did in

fact win the 2020 election. The state, you know, of course you all know was at the heart of voter fraud conspiracies in 2020. And so I'm just curious that given all of this history, how you all are thinking about these trends here? What about you, Raul? When I travel, especially outside of Atlanta, there is still a basic belief that there are problems with the systems and that there are problems with people. You hear that out there. Is it causing people not to vote? It's only a couple of voters I've talked to who said, all those problems are keeping me from voting.

I'm still hearing, yes, I believe this conspiracy, this conspiracy, this conspiracy, or that problem, or this issue. But it really is, there is still an underlying belief that something happened in 2020. And generally, it's in Republican circles, but there are some in Democratic circles too. And so it's going to be interesting to see

when I keep talking to voters, especially the ones who are voting early, but then what happens after the election, the reaction after the election. You know, I keep talking about, you know, everyone's like, hey, so what's going on? It's elections, runoffs, lawsuits. But that's the normal pattern. I think it's just a reminder to people that the courts are going to play such an important role, you know, in what happens with elections. And I'll just, I mean, and I'll just add this quickly, that Georgia and the South in

particular has a very long sordid history with voting and voting discrimination. So you have a lot of people in Georgia, even before Trump and even before 2020, that have a healthy skepticism of the election laws and the election systems and how they've prevented people from voting. Georgia's had some of the most discriminatory laws in the country for many, many, many years until very recently. So there is skepticism from that end. Then you add in the election conspiracies and the belief that, you know, somehow it was rigged and the wrong people won, and you add in a little sprinkle of elections being decided by 10,000 votes here, 10,000 votes there. And unfortunately, we've seen a lot of people primed to maybe not accept that their candidates might not win this November,

and that's really not a great place to be for democracy. All right, we are going to take a quick break. Raul Bali of WABE, thank you And Stephen Fowler of GPB, thank you as well And we're back with Miles Parks, who covers voting. Hey there. And Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Hey, Mara. Hi there.

So as we discussed in the last segment leading into this one at the very end, there are plenty of reasons to be worried about how democracy is functioning in the U.S. right now. Miles, I want to start with you. You've been reporting that there are a large number of people running for office this year who are election deniers. That includes candidates for Secretary of State who would oversee elections if they win. So how common is this? How much of the political fabric is election denial now? It's, especially among Republican candidates, incredibly common. You know, Washington Post analysis from earlier this month, I believe, found that the majority of Republican candidates for roles that have some

role in the voting process are considered election deniers at this point. As you mentioned, I have been focused specifically on Secretary of State races, which have been a little bit complicated. There's been some optimism, specifically in Georgia, where we saw Brad Raffensperger beat election denier Jody Heiss. In Colorado, there was another election denier who lost a primary there, Tina Peters, who was a noted conspiracy theorist. But there are still a number, especially swing states, Arizona, Nevada, Minnesota, where election deniers are running for the highest position to oversee elections. And not to go back to polling again, but polling is showing, especially in Nevada and Arizona, that they have a very real shot at winning and controlling

the voting process in 2024. Mara, I want to fast forward to November 9th, 2022, and look in our crystal ball. That's the day after the election. Is it safe to assume that there are candidates who will not accept the results? Absolutely. I mean, Miles just talked about how big majorities of Republicans running for governor, secretary of state, AG positions that have control over certifying elections are election deniers. You're going to have the majority of Republicans who are elected to the House of Representatives be election deniers, people who believe the lie that Donald Trump won the last election and it was stolen from him. Basically, you could argue that the Republican Party is becoming a party that does not accept the results of elections as legitimate unless they win.

And we're definitely going to see this. We even saw it in these primaries in cases where Republicans won and they said there was something wrong with it. The election denial is by definition something that undermines democracy because it tells voters it's all rigged. So if they stole it from you, then you should steal it from them next time. The peaceful transfer of power, we learned the hard way, is one of the most important things about democracy.

Well, accepting the legitimacy of elections, whether your side wins or loses, is another thing. But I think you're definitely going to see people who say the election was stolen, especially in a close race, especially in a place like Arizona, where two election deniers, Mark Fincham for Secretary of State and Carrie Lake for Governor, have a very good chance of winning. Georgia, of course, is the exception to the rule.

But yeah, I think this is one of the biggest and most worrisome features about this election cycle. I do think it's worth noting, though, that one of the things Congress is on track to do in the lame duck session is the Electoral Count Act. And this really is the congressional response to what happened on January 6th. And it has a super majority of support in the Senate. Mitch McConnell supports it. A lot of Republicans support it. And it's an attempt, at least, to make sure that what happened on January 6th doesn't happen again. It clarifies the law that the vice president serves in a purely ministerial role to oversee the electors, and it makes it harder for lawmakers to object. So I do think that there is,

at least in the Congress as it sits today, a bipartisan willingness to try to make some structural attempts to not allow things like that to happen again. Like, the most basic idea of elections is you run hard, you try hard, a result comes in, if you lose, you say, I lost, peace out, I'll try again next time, or whatever. And that very fundamental thing seemed to have cracked. I think that's what's really scary right now is that we've moved the last 20 years pre-2020, there was so much focus on the concept of making it hard to get to the ballot box,

voter suppression, right? The actual act of voting that, you know, things like voter ID laws were considered by many advocates to be impediments to the ballot box, when you talk to voting experts, that feels like such small potatoes now. Because you can have a flawed democracy where not every single person has just as easy a time as everyone else voting. You still have a democracy at its core in that system. When you start talking about messing with the back end, how the votes are counted or how the rules are determined and changing that, then you move into a whole nother conversation where the house is truly on fire. Miles, very quickly, I do want to get you to talk about the actual process of voting. I love talking about that. I know you like to talk

about that. You know, here in Georgia, we heard from Stephen Fowler that there have been changes made in the last couple of years to voting rules, processes, new restrictions, broadly, nationwide. How hard is it going to be for people to vote, to cast ballots in 2022. This, I feel like, has been one of the most misunderstood things of the last couple years because we've focused so much, rightfully so, on the few states that have, you know, passed laws that have kind of stripped away some of the pandemic era voting access things. But if you look, I got this sweet chart that shows 20 years ago, I think with voting, you really have to take a bird's eye view and look at it. 20 years ago, there was no voting early. There was no vote by mail unless like you had a very specific excuse or you lived in one of these handful of states. And now in 2022, I just like, I think it's important for people to realize like 45 states and DC have some sort of voting early without an excuse, which I feel like, yes, there have been laws that have been based on

misinformation, and that can be true, and that has made voting harder for some people, but the trajectory has been towards making voting more accessible, and it is easier to vote now broadly than it was almost anywhere 10 or 20 years ago. I have Sort of a big picture question here, and it relates to the president, but I think it could also relate to Congress, which is, you know, President Biden ran on the idea of restoring the soul of America or somehow fixing what's broken.

I think there's widespread agreement that things are not fixed, but also a question of whether there's anyone in America right now who can play that role. Dwayne the Rock Johnson. But he ruled out a run, so I don't know. I kind of think we need a queen. I mean, hey.

Guess who can play that role? Every single one of us. There's not a person, deus ex machina, who's going to come down. Like, remember when Democrats thought Robert Mueller would save them? Or Joe Biden will wave his magic wand and save the soul of the nation? That's crazy. It's up to us. There's no speech. There's no speech that any one human can give. No, no, no, that's only in the movies.

And they don't even make those movies anymore. But I do think there are really serious questions about who, if it is not the president, can actually unite the country around accepting the rules of the game. And Biden gave a speech at the beginning of September in Philadelphia trying to warn people about threats to democracy. And that speech was largely interpreted as a campaign speech. Republicans, you know, sneered at it, didn't think that it was a message necessarily, that they thought it was purely just a campaign speech. Republicans, you know, sneered at it, didn't think that it was a message necessarily, that they thought it was purely just a campaign theater. And so I do think it raises these questions for me of, if we can't all accept the rules of the game, if we don't all accept the end results of the game, I mean, that's just a fundamental breakdown. So polling would

indicate that a large number of voters believe that democracy is under threat. And it's bipartisan. They completely and totally disagree about what's threatening democracy and who the bad guys are. But there is an agreement that there is trouble. Asma, you have been out on the road reporting. You've been interviewing voters. Is the health of democracy stuff a salient issue? Is it a motivating issue at all? It's not. I mean, the single most important issue

this midterm election cycle is the economy, and largely that's shorthand for inflation and rising prices. That's something that you hear from Democrats, Republicans, independents as well. Here in Georgia, I was struck that I did hear about the health of democracy, the health of democratic institutions from a handful of voters. All voters that I heard this from identified as Democrats. I wondered if it was a little bit more salient here in the state of Georgia, because what you all had experienced, it's not something, you know, I've traveled to Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, it's not something I've heard in other states. You know, look, I think we all talk about this, pocketbook issues are the

most important, but it's real. I mean, people are really financially struggling at this moment in time. I mean, I have interviewed people who, for whom the cost of living is just a really like insurmountable thing. You know, a woman who doesn't, who's chosen, you know, for example, not to get housing insurance, she doesn't have home insurance because she can't afford it. It's gone up so much. People are getting their home, their meals from food banks, even though they work. And I think this is the fundamental problem. I am not saying that democratic health is not important, but when you are living paycheck to paycheck, that has been just top of mind for people. In a lot of close races right now,

you're seeing the messaging sort of crystallize where Republicans are focused single-handedly on the economy and Democrats in a lot of these tough races are focused are talking about democracy and protecting democracy and combating election denialism and abortion right I mean abortion has been this other big cultural issue and I have talked to campaign strategists who think that when it comes to those two things you're really dealing with a class divide. That if you are motivated by things like protecting democracy, you tend to be maybe a more affluent democratic voter. And if you're a working class American and you can't afford to fill up your gas tank and your commute's getting expensive and your grocery bill for your kids, in terms of what you rank your priorities, it's not even close. And that's just a reality. I get that. I think people are just

trying to live their lives. And the threat to democracy while I think it's very real it's still this amorphous abstract. It's not a material concern for most people. I think in Georgia Georgia is the only state I feel like where I run into more voters who know what the Secretary of State does than not.

And that's not the case. He had a year. Yeah, exactly. And you saw that with name recognition stuff. All of the data showed that. But then you look at a state like Nevada or Arizona and you look at that and you say, how is this happening that these people who are blatantly saying they think the election was stolen

and they want to basically rip apart the election system and change it, how are they polling so far ahead of people who aren't saying that? And I think a lot of people point to the idea that the majority of people just don't know what the Secretary of State does. And maybe there's just still a pretty big education gap on understanding some of these big abstract issues. Okay. So now that we've talked about all of the things that are wrong, Mara, you mentioned that there could be solutions. What are some of the ones that come to mind? Now, if you're talking about the solution to election denial, we already talked about it,

that has to do with the leaders of both parties committing to accept the results of elections as legitimate, even if they lose. There are many other things we can do to restore faith and democracy, to make it more fair. And first of all, in terms of how we treat each other, we could have civil debates where we think the guy on the other side is merely our opponent, not our mortal enemy, not, you know, by definition a Marxist or a fascist, and that our way of life will be ended if he wins the election. I mean, we can advocate for K through 12 civics education, so people actually know what democratic institutions are, so they'll understand if they're being undermined. That includes media literacy and financial literacy. We could do institutional structural reforms

that make our elections more representative, like top two primaries and ranked choice voting, which simply makes sure that whoever wins is going to get 50% of the vote or more. We could have nonpartisan redistricting so that the party that wins the most votes statewide ends up with the most seats in the legislature. Believe it or not, there are many states where the exact opposite thing occurs now. There are tons of things that we can do, and we could have term limits for Supreme Court justices,

and we could decrease the size of House districts to make more competitive districts, just like capitalism needs competition, democracy needs competition, and we have very, very few truly competitive districts now. Let's take a quick break, and then we will end the show with Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And now it's time for one of the best parts of the show, my favorite part of the show, the joy, the whimsy, can't let it go, where we talk about something we just can't stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise.

Mara. My can't let it go this week is Liz Truss, the short-lived British Prime Minister. Let us discuss Liz Truss. I want to say this is, this was a funny thing in a British newspaper. They had a lettuce and they had Liz Truss. Who will last longer? The lettuce won. Now, the other thing that I love this week is I follow a British chef on Instagram, and I think we have the cartoon that he posted, do we? Yes. Two nice British ladies, Liz Truss gave me the recipe for this cake.

If you change every ingredient, it's delicious. So Liz Truss was the shortest-lived prime minister, I think, in the hundred years. It's funny, sure, but you know what? This is a functioning democracy. The party decided that when somebody made such an egregious error and produced a program that was completely rejected overwhelmingly by the British people and the markets and, you know, the financial community that she should go. And it only took 45 days because it's a wholly different system,

but the parties there still have discipline and sweat. How many Scaramoochies was that? Three and a half? Four and a half? Four and a half Scaramoochies. Four and a half Scaramoochies. Tam, what can't you let go of this week? Well, there have been some political debates, debates between candidates for governor or for Senate, and for reasons I really don't understand,

but maybe it's part of Mara's master plan of making people be nice to each other and not treat each other as mortal enemies. Some of the debate moderators have asked the candidates to just set aside their differences and say something nice about each other. And this has proven to be somewhat challenging. So you had Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was asked to say something nice, and he had nothing nice to say. But in Minnesota, they're Minnesota nice. Other than thanking them for being willing to serve in office,

what is one nice thing you can say about your opponent? We'll begin with Dr. Jensen. I've thought about this question. I think Tim Walz is an affable individual who has a wonderful smile. It seemed really painful for him to even compliment his smile. It was glorious. But it must have been honest, right? You wouldn't just like, that couldn't have been a thing that he thought of.

He said he thought about it. He was planning ahead. He's like, what if they ask me to say something nice? What am I going to say? Okay, well. Okay, but this isn't totally new. And eyes, I can get lost in. Candidates do say these things, right, that are always a bit like, hmm.

He's a family man. You know, right. He loves his children. When they said, Barack Obama said about Hillary Clinton, she's likable enough. And, you know, they got along in the long run. They worked together. Yeah, so I guess there is a long history of this question leading to utter awkwardness. Sue, what can't you let go of?

I think we're a bit on a theme this week because the thing in politics that I actually have on the brain all the time now because we're so close to the election is one of the things I've been, like, harping on in the selection cycle is the fact that increasingly it seems to me more and more candidates just don't debate at all that they don't engage that they won't participate we're seeing this happen yeah in Arizona in Nevada here in Georgia like and this the like empty podium has become this fixture of it and I just think, what a bunch of wimps. You want to run for office, and you have all these ideas and all this, and you won't even spend 45 minutes on stage with your opponent.

And I think that there's this sense that people just do talking points, or they just do whatever. But debates have also provided some of the most iconic and memorable moments in American politics, certainly in presidential politics. But in Senate races and governor's races, they have made or broken candidacies before. And I just wish we had more of them. And I get why people don't want to do it, because you want to eliminate risk in campaigns. But I think we're missing out. No, I was just going to say that, going back to your wimp point, I feel like it is this,

like, last 20 years, it feels like if you ask a hard question, it's somehow a gotcha question. I feel like it fits into the same. It's like, no, actually, you are going to have a lot of power. Can you just stand here for two hours? It's like an hour and a half or something. And if you have a great moment in a debate,

you can, like, become an icon. You can. You could become a meme. I do wonder about how much we always, we talk about how few independent voters there are or how, like, there's,'s like less and less competitive districts. And I wonder if this goes along with that, where it's like there's just not as many people on the fence nowadays maybe.

And so people just have less to kind of, less motivation to do it. I don't know. Asma, what can't you let go of? So since we are creeping closer to Halloween, you all know, well, you all might not know, but I love a good Halloween costume, and I feel like every year there's usually one or two that, you know, is a thing.

It's really creative that parents like myself can, like, choose to decorate their children. And I saw this online. Oh, my God, I love this. It is a physical metaphorical ghost. It is a child clearly dressed up by their parent in a white sheet ghost costume with a series of text messages.

First one says, had a great time tonight. Then the other person says, me too. No response. You're free on Friday. No response. Hey. The literal definition of ghosting. Of ghosting, yeah.

I think I'm going to address my kids as Liz Truss and the head of lettuce. Oh, my God, that's great. It's timely. That's good. That is good. You will not be the only one. I had two kids for a reason, people. Miles, what can you not let go of?

I just have a heartwarming one. It's like my moment this week that I was just like, oh, and I just want all of you to experience this. There's this series that they've been doing on the Washingtonian problems Instagram, which is like a very popular Instagram account in DC, basically where they ask people how much money they make. They walk around to random people and they, this is the first one they've ever done with like a child. And he clearly doesn't get the concept of like that I should be thinking about money in this way. And so she keeps asking him. Oh, you'll just see.

She works at Legoland. Nice. Okay, do you know how much she makes? Say any price. Any price. What's your dream job? What do you want to do when you grow up? I'm going to be a doctor. Yeah? How What do you want to do when you grow up? I'm going to be a doctor.

How much do you want to make? I'm going to make people feel okay. Is there anything better than that? I've watched that video ten times. That is such a good palate cleanser. That is a really nice way to end the show. All right, that is a wrap for tonight. Thanks to the team here at the Buckhead Theater

and to our friends at WABE, GPB, and WCLK Jazz. And to the team at NPR who are not on this stage but are responsible for making it all possible, Kristinev Calamore, Gianna Capodona, Brandon Carter, Leah Crockett, Scott Detrow, Jessica Goldstein, John Isabella, Eric McDaniel, Elena Moore, Casey Morrell, Mithoni Maturi, Juma Say, Catherine Swartz, Lexi Schapitel, and Neil T. Vault. And of course, to Stephen Fowler and Raul Bali, and to all of you who support the show

and your local station. For more on that, go to donate.npr.org. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.