The Ricochet Podcast - Survey Says: Love Will Keep Us Together

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

CNN's Harry Enten joins Steve, Charlie and James to put a little pizzazz on polling data. The gang covers a great deal of ground: the DSA insurgency, a couple of key midterm races, economic pessimism, public suspicion about polling, and some of the forces behind American polarization. But it ain't all bad! Stay tuned til the end to find out about Harry's famous Uncle Neil and a story of inspiration from unlikely places. Plus, our trio debates the merits of Trump's election integrity speech, turns over a few cultural touchstones, and makes an announcement about Ricochet 5.0.Sound from this week's open: President Trump implies foul play at hand in California's recent elections in his prime-time address, and Chuck Schumer commends the legacy of Lindsey Graham on the Senate Floor.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-ricochet-podcast--5817275/support.

California's recent election for mayor of L.A. and governor was held on June 2nd, long time ago, but it was just completed a few days ago in July 10th. Think of that much more than one month. Took a month to count the votes. I wonder what they were doing. It's the Rickusay podcast with Charles C.W. Cook and Stephen Hayward. I'm James Lalex, and today we talk to Harry Enton, who's a CNN pollster. We had numbers for you and more. So let's have ourselves a podcast. Senator Graham devoted much of his life to public service, first in the military, then in Congress, where he represented South Carolina for more than three decades.

Not seeing eye to eye is no reason to be blind to the way forward. Lindsay could understand that. Every senator ought to do the same. Welcome, everybody. It's the Rickershay podcast number 798. That's right. We're just two more away from the absolute meaningless number of 800, but it'll be fun when we get there. I'm James Lilex and sunny hot torpid Edina, Minnesota. I'm joined by Stephen Hayward,

who's in Amsterdam, but we'll get to that. And Charles C.W. Cook will be along promptly. But, you know, what we are going to just absolutely go pedal to the medal and go right to our guest, Harry Anton. He's one of those fun with numbers guys, a senior writer and analyst for CNN politics. He is the network's chief data analyst, and you can find him, oh, you know, the number of series, places, platforms, and all that sort of stuff. Harry, welcome. gentlemen, it is great to be with you from Exurb in New Jersey. We'll see if my internet holds up, but for now we seem to be doing pretty gosh darn good, and I think I've got a pretty

neat background behind me as well. Yes, it's a leafy excerpt from the looks of it. In New Jersey, you say, is there some sort of cheever-esque mischief going on in the background? No, no. Manhattan who have come down for the weekend to... No, no, nothing too mischievous. Well, there's mischief a foot in politics. I don't know exactly if New Jersey is the next to be contaminated, but we see,

of course, in New York what we've had with the DSA. DSA, Democratic Socialists, I tend to discount the first part and put my emphasis on the second, are winning big. And the party seems unable to say, hey, wait a minute, these guys believe in a lot of things that are just not popular. Victor, Marx. Yeah, Marx. You got an actual Marx. Mike Collins, Ken Paxton. On this GOP side have some unusual baggage. All right. Looks crazy. Are we in the middle of some sort of weird schism where we've completely lost the center and a consensus is impossible? What does a data tell us? You're a data guy. Give us the data tale. I mean, look, on the left side of the equation, the percentage of Democrats who say that they are liberal is at an all-time high, at least as far back as Gallup polls, the conservative part of the GOP, the same, although I would argue that it's partially ideological, but it is also really even more so just potentially.

turpness with the way things that normally go in Washington, D.C., right? I mean, Democrats in Congress among their own party, the net approval rating tends to be, if anything, if they're lucky, it's slightly positive, but often negative. Democratic Socialists of America have a positive net favorable rating among Democrats, higher than Dems and Congress have. And amongst Republicans, look, it's the same old thing, at least over the last decade or so. If you align yourself with Donald Trump, you're going to do pretty gosh darned. well, regardless of any other baggage that normally might have dragged down candidates in,

you know, the olden times. Harry, it's Steve Hayward overseas at the moment. I am curious about what your thoughts might be or what your data might suggest about Lindsey Graham, who, you know, just passed away. And there's been quite a spectrum of reactions. And it strikes me that maybe he is the median political figure for Republicans in a certain way, right? He's close to Trump and enough independent, but a lot of people hate him in both parties.

A lot of people have come to love him on the Republican Party and respect among Democrats. But is he sui generous? Is he the last of his kind? Or is there a pathway for other Republicans perhaps to follow in Lindsey Graham's mode? You know, one of the things I've learned in politics is how quickly it can change. And Donald Trump has what, about two and a half years left in his second term. And obviously we do have term limits. So he's going, Adios Amigos goodbye in January of 2029.

I don't know if Lindsey Graham is the last of his kind, but I would almost turn the question on its head and say, hey, we don't know who the next Republican nominee is going to be, right? And if it's J.D. Vance, that's one thing. If it's Marco Rubio, it's a second. It could be somebody else entirely. But I do think that Lindsay Graham has a lot of good messages for, you know, Republicans and understanding how you're able to sort of walk that line, right? And one of the things that I read that was so interesting, that was a Lindsay Graham quote,

was essentially he said, you can't always kiss Donald Trump's behind. You can't trust Donald Trump's behind. What you need to do is you need to, in fact, say that Barack Obama has done something, and we don't like what Barack Obama did, and therefore you're able to find your way around. So for me, looking at what Lindsay Graham did, I think there are real lessons. I don't think he's one of a kind. I think the question is, can anybody else with sort of that political reputation follow and take the lessons of Graham where you hold your ground, but you bring Trump along for the ride? So one quick follow-up question. It's also on a somewhat general level. You were very early to noting the data, both in the run-up to the 2024 election and then especially in the results, that Trump was attracting a significantly increased share of the Hispanic vote and black males and some other minority groups. And so a two-part question. One is, is he keeping that?

support. I think there's been some erosion. But secondly, do you see any evidence that his success with those voters has transferred or is transferable to other Republicans? Okay, two things going on. One, I'm going to just note as I was kind of thinking about this as the backwoods are behind me. I will just say quickly about Lindsey Graham, which is the Republican Party is still hawkish. I think there is a age divide amongst them, and that's going to be very interesting to see going forward, whether or not the age divide amongst Republicans and whether that, you know, what we see is that the younger Republicans are less hawkish. Now, the other thing that we know, pivoting to what you just asked, is that Donald Trump has lost ground amongst Hispanics

since he became president for the second time. We have seen a real deterioration in his numbers among Hispanics. Now, that being said, the baseline, I think, has been raised a little bit. So what we are seeing is that even though Democrats have recovered somewhat amongst Hispanics, when you look at the generic congressional ballot test, they haven't gotten back to where they were prior to Trump. They are not there yet. So I think it's going to be very interesting to see whether or not that holds. But I do think the idea of a working class coalition amongst Republicans, that to me is still very much there. We still do see that Democrats are struggling amongst the white working class, but not just the white working class.

among the working class of people of color as well. And even like someone like a grand platinum up in Maine for all that talk that he was appealing to the working class, no, no, no. He wasn't. He was appealing to white college graduates and perhaps their idea of what a white working class candidate would look like. But that's not actually someone who appeals to the white working class. Well, due to infercing technical difficulties, we have temporarily lost Harry, maybe permanently so. But that doesn't mean that Stephen doesn't have the answer to the question that he was going to pose. we were talking about polling and how Trump had slid with the Hispanics.

And I'm keen to know exactly what the reasons for that are. But Stephen, you had some information and some insights on California polling. Well, I was going to ask Harry if he followed California. I mean, look, he, like most people, wants to follow the hot races, Maine, Michigan, and so forth. And there's a new poll out just this week from Mark Baldessari, who's a very good, straight down the middle pollster in California. And the bottom line is, it says California is hopeless. Sarah has a two-to-one lead with very few undecideds over Steve Hilton. But even worse were the issues.

I mean, it's not a real surprise that a Democrat would have a big lead in the governor's race. But what was really discouraging are the number of people, a very large majority, 60% or more of Californians say they approve of our environmental policies, they improve of our greenhouse gas emissions targets of zero emissions by 2040, whatever year we've made it. The only place where they dissented a little bit was the man-futable. to have no more internal combustion cars sold in California by 2035, just nine years from now. And boy, you add up all those, oh, they approve of bans on offshore drilling. They're against increased oil and gas production in California.

We've got a lot of untapped oil and gas we could get if we wanted to. And so it was very, very discouraging to read that on the whole battery of issues that you would hope would drive some voters, boy, California looks more lost than ever. And partly that's because so many conservative voters have moved out of state. I'm not one of them, but boys sooner or later, they're going to figure out of what you just described. There's a lot of England. You just described England where people will say, I cannot believe how much it costs to fill up my car. I cannot believe how much it costs to heat my home.

I cannot believe that my elderly mother, who lives in a small apartment, has a bit. And then you say, right, should we change all of the rules around energy production? And they go, change all the rules around energy production. Are you crazy? What are you? Some sort of right-wing nut? That's what California does. I find it inexplicable in both circumstances. Well, as they say, there's a lot of ruin in a nation, but the amount of ruin in California remains to be seen. As long as it's beautiful and the skies are blue and life there seems good for the people who I have the means for it to be good, then you're going to just get more of this. I mean, I don't know how these polls are made where they're going for landlines. and they're just getting the 10 or 15 remaining old cranky people somewhere, just to believe these things. Oh, there's no consequence for any of the beliefs that they espouse.

That's the thing. Right. Well, I mean, you know, oh, there we go. Ah, Harry is with us. He's found a nice, quiet, safe spot, but the Internet is strong. Stephen was just talking about California polling and how it seems to indicate a permanent class that will never change and nothing is ever going to alter the demographic

and the political makeup of California. Well, let me add for Harris, Ben, I'm just looking at the latest Mark Baldessari poll, and I'm sure you know him or know his work. And if you're conservative, it's very discouraging about California with Bacera with a Tudelun lead over Steve Hilton. But more than that is all the issues that command large progressive positions that command large majorities of support among Californians while we complain about housing affordability and everything else. They say that independence are the largest group of voters in California. I think it's now the cognitive dissonance party, but that's just my opinion.

I think at the end of the day, California has been democratic on the presidential level since 1992. That's not changing. It's been democratic on the gubernatorial level since Jerry Brown decided that he was going to come on down and come on back back in 2010. And it simply hasn't been close. This comes at the same time in which the number one concern that California say over and over and over again is affordability. But you just look at the demographics in that state, right? A lot of white college graduates, a lot of Hispanics. not the type of Hispanics that are in, you know, southern Texas or in southeast, southeast Florida. I just do not see at this point, unless our politics changes tremendously, things shifting all that much.

And I will note, you know, it's like Gavin Newsom was not that popular of a dude. They run a recall election against him. He easily beats back that recall and then gets reelected by double digits all over again. I just don't really understand how there is much of a future for, certainly for Steve Hilton's and at least in the immediate term, the Republican Party of California. Hi, Harry. It's Charles Cook here from National Review. You're the Charlie Cook. That's not the Charlie Cook

who does the Cook political. That's right. And you know, the reason that I write under Charles C.W. Coke, which is such a mouthful, is to prevent him getting my hate mail. Yeah, right. Because when I first moved. Who could hate you? Come on. No way. But my question is about the, I guess, DSA wing, although it's crept in elsewhere within the Democratic Party's desire, stated desire,

to pack the Supreme Court and add more states and so forth. Because there's a big difference between winning an election in a 50-50 country because people don't like your opponent or you just squeak over the line and doing big things to our constitutional order. And I wonder, do you have any polling on the difference between those two things? A difference that is between the likelihood Democrats win a trifectual. and that they're able without a public backlash to pack the Supreme Court, add more states and so forth. Yeah. So the answer here is pretty simple, right?

The clear majority of Americans believe that the Democratic Party is too far to the left. That we know. If they win, it will be because they are seen as the lesser of two evils, unless there is some candidate that pops out in 2028 who's magically able to turn the tide and become actually a net positive in terms of his net favorable rate. which we just have not seen outside of maybe Joe Biden in 2020, and we saw how that was all going down south. Let's just use Donald Trump as an example, right?

Here's somebody who is able to come back in a power in 2024 and has tried to run rough shot in terms of the way that we've normally done politics in this country. Yes, he has been able to accomplish some of what he wants to do. But there has been clearly a backlash against the Republican Party and against Donald Trump. We have seen, you know, the idea of court packing is not any. anything new. It's been something that FDR wanted back in the 1930s. Look, these are impressive at times, so I'm not going to give you an answer in terms of, you know, yes,

definitely no, no, no, that definitely won't happen. But what I will say is that the public's appetite for either, you know, tremendously left-wing policies or tremendously right-wing policies, it simply put is not there. And we have seen parties believe that they have mandates that they simply put do not have. And if the Democrats come into office and say they win the trifecta that, you know, you're sort of talking about, if they're able to win the House, win the Senate, win the presidency, and try and do all of those things, they'll get one shot to do it. And then there would be a tremendous backlash against them in the midterm elections. We saw it in 2018 with, you know, Donald Trump the first time around. We may very well see it in 2026, although that's a bit of a way

agency. And even in 2022, they obviously, the Democrats lost the House of Representatives. So I don't believe that the public's appetite is there for that type of running rough shot, even if they were able to, you know, do quite well in 2020. Well, now, if they lose, then you have to unpack the Supreme Court and kick D.C. and Puerto Rico and out of the union. Yeah. If they accomplish those things, they'd probably be happy for 10 years or so. But I mean, one of the things you said in a recent segment, I can't exactly tell you where. You'd compare the D.C. In this cycle to the Tea Party in 2010. And I mean, so unpack that a little bit for me with the realization that they're completely different ideologies.

I mean, that when you say about the DSA wins when they're the lesser of two evils, if the other side is saying, we are just going to so aggressively leave you alone, you're not going to believe it. We are so going to not touch your wallet and we are completely not going to make you change your light bulbs again. I mean, that may sound radical to some people, but it's less of an imposition on your life than the DSA agenda, which means that, you know, you've got to get up every morning and have a land acknowledgement before you can have your egg McMuffin. The reason that I would make the comparison is simply put that both the Republican Party of 2010, after George W. Bush left office gave way to 59 Democratic Senate seats, then plus one with Arlen Specter to get the 60 in a super majority back in 2009. The reason I make the comparison was the Republican Party was so fed up with the establishment in Washington, D.C., that they were willing, for example, to forfeit an easy Senate win in Delaware with my castle and instead put in Christine I'm not a witch O'Donnell. That is the type of anti-establishment, literally sacrificing electability to send a message. What I'm talking about with the comparison with the DSA is that Democratic Party that we see right now is as despised

in Washington, D.C. as if not more so than the Republican Party was in Washington, D.C. back in 2010. That is the comparison. And the willingness to potentially sacrifice ideology or sacrifice electability for ideology. That is what I'm really talking about. Now, if the DSA gets into power, what we'll note is the general electorate does not like the DSA. They're way underwater with the general electorate. We know that the clear plurality of the power. voters say that the DSA label makes them less likely to vote for a candidate. So, no, I don't think that, you know, looking at the numbers as they stand right now, that the DSA is a positive net positive in a general election. It's just that among the Democratic base, it's more of a net positive

than you might have ever expected when Bernie Sanders first came on the scene back in 2015-16, at least the national scene. Harry, why does polling suggest that people, hate this economy. I've seen you on television saying people hate this economy more than they hated the economy in the 1970s. And I understand there are many problems. But I look around and I think that seems crazy to me. It's not at least not obviously like it was in the 1970s, but it seems that people are livid about the state of the economy. Why? They are absolutely livid about the state of the economy. And you see it across different metrics, right? But I think the number one thing to keep in mind. I think it's twofold. One was, you know, let's just use this month, for example. The inflation

rate go, you know, in June, although I wouldn't be surprised if it pops back up in July, given the gas prices seem to be climbing again. But, you know, it was not that bad. What was it? 3.5%. But you got to take the long-term view. The inflation was so great coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. People remember when, you know, I could actually go get that pasta at the local Italian place for $14, and now it's $21. So I think you have to take that long view there. But more than that, I think there's almost this feeling of hopelessness, this feeling of I can no longer get ahead.

And that more than anything sort of penetrates the politics. The idea, if you look at the polling, most people believe that things will not be as good for their children as they were for me at a similar age. And I think the economic metrics are part of it. but I also think that what's even more part of it is that politics is not working for me anymore. The economy is not working for me anymore. So it's partially economic metrics, but it is also partially the politicians who they feel aren't working for them and aren't working to make the economy better for them.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I think it's sort of a dual role there. No, it does. And I'm not going to argue with here, but how much of this is driven by disaffected young people in major cities? that they can't afford to get an apartment unless they're going to be in Williamsburg, six to a room. Some of it absolutely is. I mean, some of it absolutely is.

I mean, if you want to talk about New York City politics, I mean, why did Jerome Moundani win in 2025? He won in 2025, beyond the fact that, you know, Andrew Cuomo is obviously a very flawed candidate. He won in 2025 because he was able to get younger people who traditionally had not turned out and off your elections to turn out and vote in massive numbers in the primary, a lot of whom were not actually born in New York and wanted to come in and sort of said like, oh my God, the rent prices were so ridiculously high. So that is part of it.

That is absolutely part of it. But it's not just there, right? I mean, look, you see that the metrics across the board are not so great when it comes to the economy in terms of how people view it. You see to numerous states. You see it among groups that actually went for Donald Trump. I mean, just take a look at working class voters. those who have an income, let's say, of less than $50,000 in terms of their family or household income. If you look at that, I think, in the most recent Washington Post Ipsos poll, what was it?

Only 16% said that they thought that groceries were affordable compared to 82% who said not affordable. So this is across the board. This is not just amongst one group. It is amongst a lot of groups. And so whatever is sort of really sort of digging in and what is making people, people feel that things are really, really bad. It is being seen across groups, but obviously among some groups, it's being sort of felt more, at least they themselves feel like it's being felt more. Harry, can I go back to your answer to Charlie a moment ago and ask you about what I consider

to be one of the most fundamental public opinion series, those goes back almost 70 years now? I know you know the series. It's the so-called trust question. Do you have confidence in the federal government to do the right thing? The Gallup, then Harris, and now Pew, have been asking since the late 50s. And for listeners who don't know, and I know Harry, you know these numbers well, but I think they're really stunning. In the late 50s,

a number of Americans who said, they had high confidence in the federal government was about 70%, 70%. Today it struggles to get above 15%. And it's been up and down, jagged ride, but mostly straight downhill for 65, 70 years. I actually show that chart to students

some days to start a semester. It makes a great first couple of hours to get their opinions and they didn't know this. And I have theories about this that I've never worked all the way through. But what do you make of that? And what do you think some of the causes of that are? And take it from there. I mean, yeah, I think one of the, you know, look, I think we sort of started

Richard Nixon and haven't looked back. I think that is a- Well, actually, it starts falling in the 60s when things go wrong. I mean, you know the data, right? Right. I mean, it's, but yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it accelerates. obviously, you know, we come out of World War II, right? And that's like sort of the high point of,

you know, everyone was, you know, it was all hands on deck. I, you know, my father, you know, I can remember, you know, my father served, but not overseas that started serving in the World War II era. And it was just America, America, America. And then all of a sudden you have the Vietnam War, right? Where the government and the minds of the people were sold the bill of goods. And then you have Richard Nixon right on top of it. Then you have the economic crises of the late 1970s, early 1980s. And it just could not get sort of this trifecta of awfulness, I think sort of starts things. Then, you know, all of a sudden you're dealing with a much more partisan media starting in the 1980s, right? You get cable news.

You have the rise of conservative talk radio, liberal talk, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And now we can't even agree on where things necessarily are. I don't dismiss at all the sort of, we were in, you know, a very unique time in which you had three television networks, if not two in the 1950s, right, in which you were all really sharing the same news source. You were all sharing the same information. I do think that that trust starts to break down in part because you're getting different information from different places and you can't necessarily agree on what's going on.

But that's just part of it. I would also say we've sort of hit a new acceleration. with social media. We have hit a new acceleration that we can see not just in the trusting government, but in terms of trusting your fellow neighbor, those numbers are atrocious. And they are atrocious, especially amongst young people. They don't, you know, the idea of picking up a phone and calling someone, the idea of actually being able, I know, it's so scary. The idea that you could go over and talk to a neighbor, these are all, in my opinion, part of a similar line. Obviously, the decline in the trust of government starts before then, but the decline in trust of anyone, that to me is truly the freakiest

numbers that we can possibly see. Because you know what? When you don't talk to people, you're unhappy because we're human beings. And all of a sudden, you're unhappy, then you're willing to go out and do some crazy things, especially at the ballot box that you might not have thought you were willing to do. I mean, let's just talk about, you know, you talk about Maine Senate. Graham Platner, it took all of that to get him to rerun from the race. The guy had a Nazi tattoo? What are we talking about? This is not a butter. Well, the, so one the strad raises that even if you wave a magic wand and give us a roaring economy, it would help, of course, it would help some things, but it probably doesn't fix all those

things you just referenced in many others. No, I mean, look, the economy being part of it and people feeling that they're hopeless, obviously is a component of it. But look, even, you know, when we were kind of coming out of COVID and there were good vibrations and before really, The inflation, people got the money. You know, the, even then, you know, you were not seeing tremendously popular politicians. You just weren't seeing it. There is something more rotten to the core about how people feel about our politics right now beyond any economic measures, though certainly that contributes to it. Charles?

I mean, I'm still proud of that because I'm just, there's so much in there. You're right, the atomization of society, the way that the high trust society that I grew up in has been. replaced by a low trust society, the demographic reasons for that. All of these things combined to make people who have, as you said, no meaningful contact with the outside world and then ergo decide to vote in what they believe will be what, a utopia that fixes all these things or just something that tears it down so we can start over again. I mean, it's this perfect combination of a lack of knowledge of what human history has been like,

what American history has been like, how lucky we are in this position, despite our problems and the rest of it. I mean, go on. Yeah, I know what I just want to say is that, you know, look, one of the reasons that politics is viewed right now as almost, at least among some people, is it is their church. Oh, right.

It is how they connect with people. And that to me is the scariest, one of the scariest things, because what that means is, is you can no longer disagree with people amicably, right? That other side is the enemy. That is contributing. you know, when I'm talking about that trust level, you know, partially being driven by the lack of trust in our neighbors, that is part of it. That is a big part of it. And so now all of a sudden it's that other side is evil. We are the righteous folks. And that is a very far place from where we were 50 years ago when, you know, the two parties, you know, you had liberal Republicans, conservative Democrats. Everyone could kind of get along even if they were disagree. They weren't. No, I agree with you completely. Absolutely. You're right. The replacement of religion, doctrine, whatever. you wanted to say that people used to

steer their lives with politics and using politics as a means by which you judge somebody's moral and personal and spiritual worth is disastrous. When I say perfect combination, I mean that that would be bad enough. Loss of trust in society would be bad enough. Loss of education

in American exceptionalism is bad enough. Social atomization through computers is bad. But when all of these are put together, yes, you have people believing that we are living in the worst possible time at the worst possible place. And, you know, like, Stephen, I grew up in the 70s, and I'm here to tell you, I remember

what the 70s were. I remember exactly how the culture felt, and it ought not, it doesn't feel that way now, and it ought not to feel that way. Now, that's not a question, it's just a speech. Let's talk to some, about some races. What's going on in Michigan? Well, Democrats

got quite a little, fun little primary on their hands, don't they? I would say so, look, to me, this will be the ultimate test, you know, as much as any one race can be of where the party is kind of going, right? You have Abdullah Syed, who could not get anywhere in 2018 running in that Democratic gubernatorial primary. And for most of this race over the last few months has been leading that race, the Democratic establishment obviously trying to, you know, rally around Haley Stevens. Mali McMorro gets out of that race. It does seem to me that Stevens has

some late momentum in that race out of the primary come August. But look, more than any other race, it is a Midwestern swing state. It is a state with a high-hara population, at least relatively speaking, Muslim population, a high, you know, it's not Mississippi when it comes to its Jewish population. And I am just really fascinating by these democratic primaries and how much Israel and support therein has played a role. And I think we'd be crazy to dismiss that issue. Just how important is it? Because obviously Haley Stevens has been much friendlier towards Israel than Abdul Siyadh has been. And we saw in 2024 when you had a bunch of traditionally Democratic voters, at least over the last few elections, decide, you know, maybe I want to sit home or maybe I want to vote for Donald Trump.

What are they going to do in this primary? And then what's going to happen come the general election? because either side is going to be upset. There's no middle ground here. I thought Mallory McMorra was trying to be the middle ground. I thought she could do it, but then just didn't happen. She had to drop out of the race. And this to me, just in the general election, is by far with Mike Rogers, who lost by like 0.20.3 back in 2024 is by far their best pickup opportunity

because one of those sides, either left wing or the more moderate center of the Democratic Party, is not going to be pleased with that outcome. Sayida said that his opponent is bought by A-PAC. Bought by A-Pak. I mean, he might as well just come out to say that she's being controlled with invisible strings by a bunch of hooked-nosed rabbis rubbing their hands together at the destruction of the goyam. I mean, normalization of this, the surfacing of this kind of stuff is, again, not a positive sign. Any other gentlemen want to talk about some other races?

There's some questions on those. There's so many. Well, I have a broader question. So if we want to do more races, I should wait. Let's ask what's the most interesting race right now that you're looking at? I think the most beyond Michigan, which is obviously, I think the question is you try and march towards, you know, if you're the Democrats, and that gain of four, who are you going to choose in Maine? Who's that candidate going to be? Is it going to be Troy Jackson?

Maybe. Then can you beat Susan Collins, who hasn't been able to be in before? And she's been in the Senate since before I left elementary school. then and then can Democrats win in these red states, right? If you want to win the United States Senate back, you're going to have to win in multiple states that Donald Trump won by at least 10 points back in 2024. Are you going to be able to win in a state like Alaska,

in a state like Texas, in a state like Ohio? Can Democrats win back the working class in Ohio? Can they win Hispanics and combine that with white college graduates it's in and around the Houston and the Dallas suburbs. How much baggage does Ken Paxton have and how much does that impact the race? And then Alaska, I just think any race in Alaska is interesting, right? Because Mary Patola has actually one statewide there. She won in 2022.

Obviously, she was turned back in 2024 for the out-large congressional district seat. But no Democrat has won a Senate race in Alaska since Mark Begage back in 2008. And he did so because the incumbent was at the time a convicted fellow. All right, here's my bigger question, and I understand this is at one level against interest for you, Harry, because you do polls. So one of the things that more conspiratorial-minded conservatives will say, and you hear this on the left as well, is that polling can be a weapon. That is to say, polling isn't just reflective of public opinion, but that polling can drive it. If you go back 130 years or so, there isn't much polling in the way that we understand it now.

And so people will say the pollsters, they ask questions, they manufacture consent. I don't believe the conspiratorial side of that. But what I'm asking is, to what extent does polling reinforce or create opinion? Do you ever see anything sort of artifacts where you say, you know, the fact that people think this candidate's going to win this is, why are they going to win? I think that that is, look, I'll be honest with you. I see it all at times in primaries. That's when you see it when you lack the ideological cues, the partisan cues, and you go, okay, we're running in a Republican primary, and I'm looking for the sort of moderate candidate,

the conservative candidate. And they're like two or three of them. And you're like, which one am I going to choose in order to beat back the ideological candidate that I don't like? Right. Let's say we're running in the moderate lane. And, you know, we want to choose a moderate candidate and we want to beat back to conservative. And there's three moderates. Well, all of a sudden, a poll can come out.

and say that one of the moderates has the better chance, regardless of whether or not that that poll is actually an accurate gauge of public opinion could absolutely cause a cascading effect whereby the supporters of the other two moderate candidates go to that third and then either forces those other two to drop out of the race or just sees their support just drop completely out. We have absolutely seen that over and over and over again in primaries where you essentially see, hey, that's the conservative candidate. That's the guy we want to get behind. We're in an Iowa caucus on the Republican side. We see that late momentum, you know, going for ex-candidate, you know, Rick Santorum is the Christian conservative that we want in the 2012 Republican primary. And you

would literally see him gaining each day, as it became clear, in the lead up to those caucuses, that he was the candidate that we would want to choose. Yeah, you know, I, uh, Harry, I used to share an office during my time at UC Berkeley with Mark DeKamila, who I think you probably know or know of. Well, I just talk endlessly with him about polling methodology for just this kind of problem. And Charles, you must know this, because Mark and I used to revel in that wonderful scene of yes, prime minister, where Sir Humphrey explains how you rig a poll. And Bernard Wall Naive says, really? Is that what pollsters do? And Sir Humphrey says, well, not the reputable ones, but there aren't many of those.

Push polling. It's been around for a while. But, no, Harry, I'm a huge geek for the methodology of these things. and, you know, hats off to you and others who play this straight. I appreciate, and that's always what I try to do. You know, I have, you know, people on the left and on the right who like me, and there are plenty who also dislike me as well. And that's probably the sign that, you know, you're probably doing what you're supposed to be doing.

And I will note, you know, again, in an age in which the Internet is running rampant, it's very easy for numbers to get out there that really shouldn't be trusted. And more than that, you know, one of the key. funders of good public polling traditionally had been the newspapers. And obviously newspapers are not what they once were. And that's why you've seen an increase in the number of partisan polls that are out there. And it takes a more discerning eye and a discerning ear to sort of figure out, wait a minute, should I trust this poll?

Should I not? And, you know, obviously there's always room for more folks. But we're at a perilous time when it comes to public opinion. pulling. I still believe it is very useful. I still believe there are plenty of good pollsters out there, but it's easier than ever for those ones who may not be playing it, you know, down the middle, down the correct line to get their numbers out and potentially make the public think those who at least follow polling anyway, make them think something that isn't actually true. The newspaper at which I worked spent a lot of money on polls and was very proud of their poll and thought it was one of their Fabergeet eggs

and was widely disregarded just about everybody I knew who read the newspapers curious how it works. I find myself getting questions all the time via text and while I would like to answer them I actually would like to participate, there is something about being called by name. James, do you have a moment when I figure that

the minute I say this, that or the other I'm put into a data bank or another data bank, at least since I'm already probably in 7,400 and that my answers will be recorded and maybe used against me in a public court of law or something like that. I'd love to participate But I just sort of like, no, you know who I am?

I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, go away. You know, I would just say a few things. Number one, you know, what we've seen is the changing of how we, you know, get people's opinion, right? For much of my young life, I'd like to still think I'm south of the, you know, the equator on that one. We call people up on, you know, their home phones. Now, what is it, 25, less than 25% of Americans even have, you know, a landline at home? That means we have to get them through means that we wouldn't have necessarily thought 25, 30 years ago,

one of which has been the movement towards text. And I will also note one of the real movements in terms of this is really geeky, is that we used to, you know, use random digit dialing, which was, you know, essentially, you know, you would dial the exchange, and you weren't sure who you were going to get and you'd have to ask a few identifying questions. Now we're much more likely to use registered voter lists, that how the campaigns have generally used them. So we know exactly who we're calling.

we know or texting or getting over the internet in terms of the way that depending, you know, how you're getting the sample exactly. But yeah, they would probably know who you are, especially if they're calling you from a registered voter list. Landline survey finds steep opposition to social security cuts. Well, I want to know if you got those polling lists from China, China or the rest of them, but we'll talk about that later. The little time that we have here, I just want to say a lot of what you said is not depressing, but it's reason for concern in America. And it is. And I love this country, and I would like to think that, you know, that love would keep us together. Because those who won another civil war don't realize that breaking a... My uncle wrote that song.

Very good. Also wrote that song. You've just got one of James Lillick's patented segways. Right. And you have... And you stepped on it with a skill that would make Rob Long proud. So, yes, I was leading right up to the point that your uncle was the great Neil Sedaka. Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah. I mean, look, my... It's so funny.

talking with a colleague the other day. And, you know, my grandmother, my Nana, Nana Esther and my mother grew up in Monticello, New York. That's the Borsh Belt. That's, you know, about an hour and a half north of New York City. She ran a hotel, the Esther Manor up there. And in the late 50s, my Nana, you know, was hiring musical acts. And here comes Uncle Neil, not Uncle Neil then, in and to perform.

and he met my aunt, my aunt Liba there, and they both decided, hey, we say something in each other. And, you know, I knew Uncle Neil for my entire life. It took me a while, though, to truly understand how magically he was in terms of his musical prowess. You know, he wrote and sung three number ones. He wrote another number one, Love Will Keep Us Together, which obviously was the captain and to Neil. And they name check to at the end of the song, too, which is correct. Sadaka is back. Exactly right. And one of the things I was fortunate enough to interview him for a podcast that I did a few years ago. And I asked him why he wrote the songs.

Did you write them so that you could perform? And he said, who else would perform them? Of course I wrote them to perform them. What made my uncle truly special was not just that he was a talented songwriter or that was able to sing his songs. It was that he was able to perform them. If you go on a YouTube and watch some of those performances, they are truly magical. He had an understanding of who the audience was and so that there was no drop off. And I would even argue an acceleration going from the studio to the live audience. And I dare say that that's something that I try to replicate, right? You talk

about numbers. Numbers can be really boring. But if you throw in a little pizzazz while not actually losing the emphasis of what you're trying to talk about, you might actually get someone willing to listen to it and say, hey, I learned something to that. There's an NPR biography of him with his participation, I believe, that ran earlier this year. And I advise anybody to find out because you'll hear the man himself and hear the tale of the career. And if you just know him from some, like me, growing up in the 70s, who's this guy? And then you realize the depth and breadth of his work and how he started out. It's a great American story. Harry, thanks for telling us the American stories that you do in CNN with the polling and the rest of it. Harry Inton, write a book or

something so we can have you back or you know have a do another poll and we'll have you back then it's been great to pick your brain for the knowledge that you have thanks for appearing in the guy and thank you for appearing in the pocket i stepped on your line again thank you for appearing on the ricochet podcast today thanks guys so before we go uh charles before you got here stephen was saying uh trump gave a speech last night anybody see it i did i watched it uh perhaps gentlemen you would like to tell me what you thought of it and whether you regarded the uh the the the revelation of the five different steps of information about to be revealed today or already up at white house.gov is this a cud that we've already chewed or is this new stuff and do you think it

will move the needle well i thought it was a joke i was going to throw that grenade in all right that's good started well i thought it was a joke it's not that everything trump said is untrue i'm sure there are attempts from china to influence our elections it's that trump is not interested in this except in so far as it advances his conviction that every single time he's lost an election, it's been unfair, which is, of course, his prevailing sentiment about 2020 and preexisted it. If you go back to the primaries, he would complain that he was cheated by Ted Cruz. Well, devil's advocate, don't you care that the FBI and the CIA and all the other three-letter agencies are keeping from the president evidence of Chinese penetration and corruption and the rest of these things,

and that we have emails that say, it looks like I'm running a shadow government here. Does that not worry you? Because I found that's what he said. That to be the, that I found to be the interesting part. Don't tell him about this. He'll just get spun up. I found that interesting. Well, yeah.

I think that there's a great deal wrong with the bureaucracy. I think my credentials on that are fairly solid. I am a unitary executive guy, and I don't like what a lot of, executive branch does to our executives. But I think that if you're going to have a prime time address on elections and you're going to advance this sort of argument, then you really have to do so in a politically agnostic and serious manner. And Trump's not serious absent tariffs about China. he's serious about his conviction that he lost in 2020. Trump's a guy who has actually upset a lot of conservatives by pushing back against the idea

that we should be more serious in determining who is here from China. We have tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of Chinese students in the United States that I don't think should be here because it seems likely. at least from the evidence I've read, that they have close connections to the Chinese Communist Party. Right. And that many of them are helping the Chinese government do what they have done for 20 or 30 years, which is steal everything. I saw the SpaceX clone the other day.

They couldn't be bothered to remove the tags from the rockets. They steal pretty much everything that we produce in software and in hardware. And I have no doubt that they are screwing or trying to screw with our elections. It is notable Trump didn't say a single vote had been changed. But I've no doubt they're trying to do it. But he doesn't care about that, James. And I think that this is just a perfect example of his blinkered myopia. Well, if his blinkered myopia and not caring about it, really, does that matter if we get at the end a Save Act that requires proof of citizenship and a photo ID?

I mean, I don't care. If he's motivated by pure peak over 2020, I don't care if the result is more fortified elections. Well, I mean, in that sense, no, it doesn't matter, but that's not what we're discussing. I mean, if the question is, should we pass the SAVE Act, then with a couple of constitutional objections I have around the edges, yes, we should. But we're discussing the speech that was given from the President of the United States, not whether we should pass the SAVE Act. Well, now, I don't think it was a joke, although I take, Charlie, I do take your point that Trump has not helped himself with the way he's conducted himself for five years now about this. By the way, my counterfactual, which I think I actually staked out before the world blew up on January 6th, is that Trump would have been better when all the normal remedies had exhausted themselves by the end of December

to have struck an Andrew Jackson pose and said, this election was corrupt and rotten, but I'll be back the way Andrew Jackson did, the 20. I think, by the way, he'd have won on a landslide, and it wouldn't have even been close. And so now at this point, he's damaged goods for the reasons you point out. The reason I don't think is a joke is for a couple of reasons. One is, you know, actually my wife has to be on this. She's, you know, election expert and election lawyer of five levels deep. And I was like to tell students that, you know, we have 100,000 precincts in this country.

And our elections are run by volunteers. It's usually little, gray-haired ladies who come out every two years and, you know, run the procedures. They're very earnest about it. Most of the county recorders are serious, not corrupt people. They do a good job or they try to. on the other hand, what's always been the remedy for election fraud going back a century and a half? It's been poll watchers. Suddenly in 2020, we have an election where there are almost no poll watchers.

And in fact, we don't have people going to the polls because of COVID. We mailed ballots out to everybody. They may have been legitimate people qualified to vote, but there's no way to check on that. And so some of those anomalous results that are purely circumstantial, which is not proved, but makes you think something strange here. The one to me is a political scientist that's the most odd is that, that Biden was the first newly erected president whose party lost seats in the House of Representatives for his first time and over a century. That just not happened in forever. That's very, very odd.

And there are other oddities people point to that make you say, huh, something doesn't add up to here. So I think if Trump's purpose was to say our elections are insecure, in isolation, I think that wasn't a bad speech. In the context you raise, I think there's a problem with it. But look, and I think you conceded this in a way, Charlie. you know China we know rips off our intellectual property left and right and spies like crazy why wouldn't they want our voter files for the purpose of causing some mystery? I've no doubt that they would. No, I have no doubt that they would. And we know that they want our information because, what was it, 10 years ago, they stole

130 million social security numbers. That's not my point. My point is that Trump reasoned backwards here, as he always does on this question. This was not a case of a president getting a. a brief that said, sir, we have a big problem with China. Not only are they engaged in widespread industrial espionage, but they want to. Again, there was no accusation of evidence of actual vote changing, but they want to affect our elections. This is a problem. Do something about it. And then the president goes on TV, and it is important that it's bipartisan, because he's president of the

United States in this context, not the leader of the Republican Party, and says, Here is the problem. Here's what I want to do about it. But that's not what he did. He went on television. The problems with the 2020 election that you're discussing weren't related to China. Those were rules that I think were wildly misguided that were passed largely in blue jurisdictions with the excuse of COVID. And insofar as there was a problem in 2020. And I don't think the election was stolen. So please send me all the rude emails you want. But insofar as there was a problem in 2020, the problem was that right in front of our eyes, the rules, either legislative or mostly via executive action, were changed. In other words, they took COVID on the left and they said, how can we advantage ourselves as far as is legally, legally possible to win this election?

And then they used those rules ruthlessly. But that wasn't China. Right. Well, right. Well, I mixed things up and I shouldn't. No, my line at the time, which our mutual friends, Henry Olson and John Fund agree with, was the Democrats stole it fair and square. Yeah. Right.

And so my problem is that Trump comes out, reasoning backwards from his upset over that. And he implies and, you know, infers and hints that that issue in 2020 and the real threat, I mean, sure, although I don't think it's been particularly executed, from China are one and the same. And they're not. And that really bothers me because I'm a China hawk. I would like to see us get much more serious about China. Not with dumb tariffs that have 15 different explanations depending on the day. But I would like us to get much more serious about China, which is a serious geopolitical foe. You know, I had Tom Cotton on my podcast a couple years ago. He wrote a book about China, which is far more hawkish than Trump is, that laid out seven ways in

which they are a serious threat to this nation and its power. So I would like to see us take this seriously. And I just don't think that's what I saw last night. I don't think that's what I saw at all. I think I saw the conflation of two issues, which in some ways, in some ways actually damages our ability to confront China because it makes it look to people who aren't Republicans. Like if you're worried about China, then you're worried about 2020 and the things Trump obsesses over, but actually they're two totally separate topic. Well, they're going to automatically gainsay what he says, period.

They're going to come down in faith. I mean, if Trump attacks the FBI, then they love the FBI. If Trump is using FBI information to prove his point, then it's part of the corrupted deep state that he has been to as well. If Trump comes out against China, all of a sudden, they become a sign-files. I mean, it just... Not the people write in the middle, not

persuadable people. Who are the people who returned him to office in 2024? I know, but I, like, as I said before, I care less for the matter of the rationale and what brought him to it as I do more about the end result of his tenure in the offices, I keep saying. Well, we're not going to solve that. So let us move to two little cultural questions to end the day.

The first goes to Stephen Hayward, who I believe is in Amsterdam, not strolling around looking at the lasses and the short skirts in the windows, and that's a disgusting part of town. Really, it's just degrading or walking past the places with the billowing weed smoke coming out of them. But I assume in some other places that give you the old culture, the old, fine historical monuments like the train station, which no longer has something that Stephen went looking for today. Yeah, well, I mean, I was here several times in the 80s, and I thought of you, James, and went looking for it.

They used to have a wall drug sign at the main square there by the main train station, a wall drug, 5,800 miles, whatever it was. And I thought that was, you know, right down your alley as an upper Midwesterner. Absolutely. Yeah, Amsterdam is pretty funny that way. I mean, the joke is everyone knows about the morals of Amsterdam, where if you want coffee, you go to a cafe, but if you go to a place called coffee shop, it's where you buy weed.

And here, OnlyFans means how you're supposed to keep yourself cool in the summertime. It's kind of nuts. But somebody has to keep up Rob Long's parapetetic ways here on the Rickachie podcast. Yes, and that's my job, I think. Extraordinary version of it. We'll all be jetting off to England in a little while here. That's a contribution solely that I will make to the carbon imprint of this podcast. Charles, we end with you because you put up another picture.

For those who don't know and aren't looking at the video stream, every week Charles puts up a different album cover on the other side of his office, and we are expected to know what it is. I know what it is. There's no question of my mind. I recognize it right away. The only question is whether or not it's some special edition that has a sticker in the upper left-hand corner because it's a little bit differently configured.

But, Stephen, can you tell what the album is without... I saw you getting closer to your screen as though that would help. Yeah, I can't. I mean, it looks like... That's the one with sort of the yellowish characters on it. I mean, I'm not sure. It is good by yellow brick road by... Well, that's what I thought.

It was my first guess, but I wasn't sure. You can see at the top of his head. You can see at the bottom of the, you can see the framing of the wall through which he is walking. Charles, did you think that that one was going to stump me? No, to be honest with you, it was the first one that I found when I replaced the pornographic Abraxas cover that you pointed out. And before my kids could come in and look at it, I swapped that.

The sticker says specially priced two record set. So it's not a special edition. I think it's just... So I'm right, and I did see a stick on that. That is good. My God, and you don't... And my glasses are bad, but apparently I have some... I have enough remnant vision left that I could see that.

Well, I'm glad you got that Braxis out of there because working blue last week as we did probably cost us some listeners. But I think we've been quite clean and instructive and informative, which leads me to this. Soon to come is Rurkishay 5.0. If you've loved 4.4, whatever, and you know you have, Charles, they're going to love 5.0 because? Well, I put a post up on RICOchet this morning updating everyone.

We're on track. I said the end of September. We will meet that. New website is done. We've moved completely away from WordPress and toward nothing else. It is now RICOchet. It is custom software. RICOchet 5.

And we will have apps on Android and iOS as well. I am pretty sure we'll be able to launch with them. The only reason I can't promise that 100% of course is that I have to go through a review from Apple and Google, and they can delay in ways that we don't have to worry about with the website. But it's all looking pretty good, and we're in pretty in-depth testing now. In fact, if you look behind me, you'll see a wall of red on one of my screens. That's bugs that I'm squashing. So you built it from scratch.

You decided not to go with Drupal. I'm sorry. I like to give people horrible 2010 flashbacks for that. I had a site on Drupal once that I had to run. Oik, Gavalt. Anyway, Stephen, you're in Amsterdam. You'll be back next week, I assume. I know, I'm going to be somewhere in Germany next week. I don't know where he yet, but... A romantic thing to say. I'm sure there's a Bing Crosby song with that title.

Well, in any case, we'll see everybody in the comments right now at Rookishay 4.0, or you will say, happily, yes, I gave you five stars on Apple. I went to all of your responses. It's great stuff. I signed up for the member feed. My life is better. not complete, never can be, but better. I'm James Lilex, Minneapolis. It was Stephen Hayward in Amsterdam and Charles CW. Cook in Florida,

and we thank you for listening, and we'll see you all next week. Bye-bye.