NC election results followed the historical trend (11-13-2024--Hour3)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalinershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:30] I did say I was going to get to this, the takeaways from North Carolina's elections. I mentioned this at the very top of the show and then completely shifted gears and went in a different direction. But that's what I do. You know, it's, I know me. It's so me.

[00:00:50] To people who have watched North Carolina politics, the results that we saw last week should not be a total shock. Right? People keep asking, they've been asking for years, how did Dan Forrest lose the governor's race when Donald Trump carried the state? And now we have the same question, you know, how did Mark Robinson lose when Donald Trump carried the state?

[00:01:16] And in the piece written by Will Duran and Paul Specht at WRAL.

[00:01:24] They point out that this is the way that voters operate in North Carolina. It has been this way for decades.

[00:01:32] Ticket splitting. North Carolinians do it more than like anybody else. I don't know why there are many different reasons for it going back over all of the different election cycles.

[00:01:44] For more than half a century, North Carolina has almost always sent Republicans to Washington and Democrats to Raleigh.

[00:01:58] I think that it is largely rooted in the Democrat machine.

[00:02:03] And look, we're seeing, you know, Josh Stein is the latest iteration of the machine.

[00:02:11] This is now, if you read a book called The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics, it goes through all of the different Democrat political machines throughout North Carolina history, as well as, you know, Republicans that have won offices and such.

[00:02:25] There's, you know, a whole section in there on Jesse Helms and the like.

[00:02:28] But the Democrat machine has shifted. It morphs over the years.

[00:02:36] And the power base moves. It used to be out in Shelby. It was down east.

[00:02:41] Right. There were different areas where the where the power was centered inside the Democrat Party.

[00:02:48] And when you have a party that controls all of the levers of the state government and the the appointed positions and such that they would they would give people jobs based on their donations to particular candidates, their relationships.

[00:03:07] If they were, you know, related to some politician, they would get gigs.

[00:03:12] It's a patronage and spoil system.

[00:03:15] The the Christmas Eve massacre, whatever it was called, that Jim Hunt did fired a whole bunch of people inside state government when he took over.

[00:03:26] I think it was like 16 people or something, but I mean, there were a lot he would go through and fire people when he took over after a Republican governor.

[00:03:33] So this has been occurring for a long time.

[00:03:37] The machine that we see is now is the current form of the Hunt machine.

[00:03:44] Jim Hunt.

[00:03:45] That goes back like, what, 40 years.

[00:03:50] Roy Cooper came through that system.

[00:03:52] Bev Perdue came through that system.

[00:03:55] Mark Baznight.

[00:03:58] And now Josh Stein.

[00:04:00] I have little doubt that Jeff Jackson will be the next in line.

[00:04:05] Because he just won as attorney general.

[00:04:07] This is what they do.

[00:04:08] They find candidates that fit a certain kind of a mold that the business community that sort of the.

[00:04:14] Yeah, I mean, the business crowd.

[00:04:17] Finds palatable and they can say all of the lefty stuff that they want to say.

[00:04:22] I think maybe there could be a limit on that at some point coming up here, but I don't know.

[00:04:27] It doesn't seem like there has been.

[00:04:30] There's this tension in North Carolina between sort of the gentry and the populists.

[00:04:37] And the good candidates are able to appeal to enough of both of those camps.

[00:04:45] You can't be full on gentry.

[00:04:47] You got to have some bit of populism and you can't be full on populist.

[00:04:50] You got to have some gentryism in there, too.

[00:04:57] So polling on the gubernatorial race.

[00:05:01] These are the five takeaways that WRAL's Will Durant and Paul Specht find from the election.

[00:05:09] Number one, polls were mostly accurate.

[00:05:11] North Carolina offered some silver linings for Democrats.

[00:05:16] Money, in this case, you know, fundraising money matters.

[00:05:20] Hurricane Helene may have helped Democrats break the supermajority.

[00:05:25] And Mark Robinson affected some, but not all, down-ballot races.

[00:05:31] But not up-ballot.

[00:05:32] I said at the time when I saw this theory being run that, oh, Mark Robinson's problems are going to, you know,

[00:05:40] they could possibly impact Donald Trump.

[00:05:42] And I thought, what?

[00:05:43] Why?

[00:05:44] That's crazy.

[00:05:45] Why would somebody down-ticket, down-ballot, have an impact on somebody above?

[00:05:52] Like, that's not anything that anybody has ever pitched before.

[00:05:56] But in this case, it was wish-casting, right?

[00:05:59] They're like, oh, I hope this is the case.

[00:06:00] If we just say it enough times, then people will get the hint that it should, you know?

[00:06:06] So, first off, polling was pretty accurate.

[00:06:08] They showed Trump leading, like, according to 538 polling, he was up by one point.

[00:06:16] Real clear politics, real clear polling, they had him up 1.2.

[00:06:21] In the end, he won by more than 3%.

[00:06:25] And what did I say going into the election?

[00:06:27] I said, Donald Trump overperforms his polling at the ballot box.

[00:06:34] And the only thing I can attribute it to is shy Trump voters, right?

[00:06:42] The polling outfits have had difficulty capturing the true extent of Trump's support when they poll.

[00:06:49] For whatever reason.

[00:06:51] People don't want to talk to them.

[00:06:52] People don't answer their phones.

[00:06:54] Or they lie.

[00:06:55] Whatever it is.

[00:06:56] People don't want to tell pollsters that they're going to support Donald Trump.

[00:07:00] And, by the way, that does not happen with Democrats.

[00:07:06] It just doesn't.

[00:07:08] People don't lie and say, oh, I don't want to say I'm going to support Kamala Harris.

[00:07:14] You got women that are shaving their heads and wearing blue bracelets to advertise the fact that they voted for Harris.

[00:07:21] It is not the same.

[00:07:22] And that, honestly, as a sidebar here, that should tell us something that is wrong in our society, right?

[00:07:29] In our culture.

[00:07:31] Where you've got a not small portion of the population that is afraid to tell people that they voted for Donald Trump.

[00:07:43] That they voted for the Republican nominee for president.

[00:07:45] Somebody that has won a majority of the popular vote, the Electoral College, and, you know, helped usher in House and Senate leadership or majority control by Republicans, as well as shifts among virtually every, if not every, I think the only one was like white females.

[00:08:03] Everybody else moved to Republicans.

[00:08:07] Yet you have people in America that are hesitant to say that they voted for Trump.

[00:08:13] And, like, I read a lot of media.

[00:08:16] I read a lot of conservative media.

[00:08:18] I have never seen ever any kind of an article ever that says you should disown your liberal voting family members.

[00:08:28] I see them all the time in the opposite direction.

[00:08:31] That is a you problem, Democrats.

[00:08:34] Democrats.

[00:08:34] That's a you problem.

[00:08:36] You guys are doing that.

[00:08:38] You're making your voters crazy.

[00:08:41] Right?

[00:08:42] You've got them convinced that the world is going to end.

[00:08:49] That democracy is going to die.

[00:08:52] That, you know, Republicans are Hitler, Nazis.

[00:08:57] Your scare mongering is having severe deleterious effects on the mental health of the body politic.

[00:09:06] That's on you guys.

[00:09:08] Okay.

[00:09:09] W.

[00:09:09] R.A.L.

[00:09:10] says that their polling showed that Harris and Trump were tied.

[00:09:14] And 2% supported third party candidates.

[00:09:16] Now, Trump ended up winning North Carolina 51 to 48%.

[00:09:23] They say that could.

[00:09:24] So here.

[00:09:25] So they said and like 2.5% voted for third party candidates.

[00:09:29] They say that could indicate most of those who said they were undecided ended up backing Trump when they went to vote.

[00:09:39] Well, that would mean all of them.

[00:09:45] You guys missed it by like three points and that's what Trump won by.

[00:09:49] So like that would tell me that.

[00:09:51] Yeah.

[00:09:52] Anyway, so that's them saying, no, we got it right.

[00:09:55] Kind of.

[00:09:56] Next up.

[00:09:57] Silver linings for Democrats.

[00:09:59] It wasn't all bad for Democrats.

[00:10:01] And this is true.

[00:10:02] The Tar Heel offered some bright spots for them.

[00:10:05] North Carolina Democrats won some statewide races.

[00:10:08] Right.

[00:10:08] Governor, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State and Superintendent of Public Instruction.

[00:10:14] Which, by the way, I would point out that before.

[00:10:18] What was his name?

[00:10:20] Mark.

[00:10:22] Oh, his name was Mark Robinson, too.

[00:10:24] He was the former public instruction superintendent.

[00:10:27] Wasn't it?

[00:10:29] Didn't.

[00:10:29] Yeah, I think so.

[00:10:32] I can picture him.

[00:10:33] I think that's what his name was also.

[00:10:36] Before Catherine Truitt.

[00:10:37] He was the first one.

[00:10:38] He beat June Atkinson.

[00:10:40] He was the first Republican superintendent for public instruction, I think, ever in North Carolina.

[00:10:47] So it's not a position that Republicans have typically held.

[00:10:53] Democrats tend to do better on the education question.

[00:10:56] So it's not surprising.

[00:10:57] And Catherine Truitt, lost in her primary.

[00:11:02] I suspect she would have had a better chance of winning against Mo Green had she been the nominee again.

[00:11:08] But, you know, Republican primary voters want what the heart wants.

[00:11:15] Democrats also won the only competitive congressional race in the Southeast.

[00:11:19] incumbent U.S. Representative Don Davis, a Democrat who has often voted with the GOP on immigration.

[00:11:26] He had fended off a challenge from Republican Lori Bucow.

[00:11:30] Democrats also appeared to have won enough legislative seats to break the supermajority, meaning Republicans soon will have a lot more trouble overriding gubernatorial vetoes.

[00:11:40] Because, OK, they kept the supermajority in the Senate.

[00:11:45] They lost the supermajority by one seat, which is what it was before Tricia Cotham flipped to become a Republican about, what, a year or two ago.

[00:11:55] So it's not like there was some big, you know, renunciation of the Republicans in the House here.

[00:12:04] North Carolina moved to the right by about 1.7 percentage points, far less than most battleground states and the rest of the nation.

[00:12:13] The only battleground state that shifted less than North Carolina was Wisconsin, which moved right by 1.5 percentage points.

[00:12:21] Trump won there by about one point after he lost by half a point in 2020.

[00:12:28] Right. So Democrats have some reason to to celebrate.

[00:12:34] Right. They won these these statewide races in the 43 non-battleground states.

[00:12:40] Trump gained an average of almost seven points.

[00:12:45] That's a mandate.

[00:12:47] That's a mandate.

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[00:13:52] So here's an email to Pete at thepetecalendarshow.com from John.

[00:13:57] Since 1976, Republicans have won the presidential race in North Carolina except once.

[00:14:04] And that was in 08, Barack Obama carried the state, won it by very few votes.

[00:14:12] But every year since Carter, first term, has gone Republican.

[00:14:16] And Democrats have won the governor's race every time except 84, 88 and 16.

[00:14:24] Martin, Martin, McCrory.

[00:14:28] So this is the norm.

[00:14:31] What we saw last week, that is the norm.

[00:14:34] That doesn't mean it's going to be that way forever.

[00:14:36] It just means that has been the historical trend.

[00:14:39] All right.

[00:14:40] Let me go over and talk with Steve first.

[00:14:41] Hello, Steve.

[00:14:42] Welcome to the program.

[00:14:44] Hey, hi.

[00:14:45] Hey.

[00:14:46] My thought on polls is they've outlived their usefulness.

[00:14:50] They're expensive.

[00:14:51] They're not accurate.

[00:14:53] In the old days when people had landlines, you didn't know who was calling.

[00:14:56] And you kind of thought it was cool to get surveyed.

[00:14:59] But now everybody screens their calls.

[00:15:03] Because my wife and I, if we don't recognize the name, we don't answer.

[00:15:07] And if somehow they get through, we say, I'm sorry, we don't give information out.

[00:15:11] Right.

[00:15:11] So can I ask?

[00:15:13] The validity of even continuing with surveys.

[00:15:16] Well.

[00:15:16] And they've been so inaccurate.

[00:15:18] Why spend the money on them?

[00:15:19] They're operating like government.

[00:15:21] Right.

[00:15:21] So, well, I mean, you've got a couple questions that you've raised there.

[00:15:26] First off, do you mind if I ask, did you vote for Donald Trump?

[00:15:30] I did.

[00:15:31] All right.

[00:15:31] So you're what is referred to as the shy Trump voter.

[00:15:36] You're not interested in participating in the survey.

[00:15:38] You're not.

[00:15:39] Even if they get through, you're not going to tell them.

[00:15:42] And that's why Trump overperforms on Election Day is because people don't want to talk to pollsters.

[00:15:48] That's one of the Trump supporters mainly.

[00:15:50] Because a lot of people on the left have no problem talking to pollsters about who they want to vote for.

[00:15:56] Right.

[00:15:56] So that's part of the issue.

[00:15:58] The landline issue is a – that was a huge one when people started converting over to cell phones.

[00:16:04] But the polling outfits have largely got that part figured out.

[00:16:08] They just have to make way more calls.

[00:16:10] They've got to make tens of thousands of calls.

[00:16:13] And they also don't just do it that way.

[00:16:15] They also go out into the field.

[00:16:17] They try to ask people.

[00:16:19] They'll go door to door or something.

[00:16:21] They'll go to a place where people have gathered.

[00:16:23] So there are ways that different outfits conduct their polling in order to correct for those limitations, I think.

[00:16:29] Now, why do the polls still occur?

[00:16:33] Well, number one, you've got campaigns and candidates and parties that need the polling.

[00:16:39] And so they will continue to pay for their polling.

[00:16:42] But these are firms that you and I have never heard of because if the polling outfits are really good,

[00:16:47] they don't do them for a TV station or a newspaper.

[00:16:52] Right.

[00:16:52] Now, the TV and newspapers, they will contract with polling outfits that aren't as good but are –

[00:16:59] these are the ones that we report on that we see in the press.

[00:17:02] They will do that in order to influence elections and create stories.

[00:17:08] Right.

[00:17:09] So this way they could say new polling shows, fill in the blank.

[00:17:12] That's why they do those polls.

[00:17:15] So I think they're going to be around for a while.

[00:17:18] I don't think you're going to get rid of them because there is still an incentive for media to have their own polling outfits,

[00:17:24] go out and do surveys.

[00:17:26] And definitely inside the campaigns, they need the polling because they have to make strategy and tactical decisions based on what the results are showing.

[00:17:34] I appreciate the call, Steve.

[00:17:37] So let's get to some messages.

[00:17:38] Gary says,

[00:17:39] Because I think the Democrats for state do a good job of skating if they agree with radical Democrat national policies,

[00:17:47] and then the state media aids them in that.

[00:17:50] They speak zero on trans issues this cycle.

[00:17:54] They ignored BLM and DEI issues, etc.

[00:17:57] Right.

[00:17:57] Part of the reason why Democrats do so well in North Carolina is the North Carolina political press.

[00:18:05] The North Carolina political press plays, you know, D&D with Republicans all the time on everything.

[00:18:14] And this was before they took over control, but it has accelerated since.

[00:18:19] It's become even worse.

[00:18:21] And D&D is defend or disavow.

[00:18:23] It's not the role playing game.

[00:18:26] D&D defend and disavow.

[00:18:29] Where somebody, like you saw with this race, where Mark Robinson says something or, you know, tweets something or types something or goes to a website.

[00:18:36] And then all of a sudden everybody is forced to have to either defend or disavow this thing that Robinson said or did.

[00:18:44] In some cases, 30 years ago.

[00:18:47] They don't ever do that.

[00:18:49] Media in this state never does that when a Democrat scandal erupts.

[00:18:55] They never run around asking people defend or disavow, defend or disavow if they're Democrats.

[00:19:01] They're never asked, you know, probing questions about their political philosophy and where they break from the national party on certain issues.

[00:19:11] So Democrats get to present themselves to the voters as a middle of the road, moderate Democrat type when, in fact, they are not.

[00:19:21] And at some point, maybe that changes.

[00:19:24] But that I think Gary is correct that that is part of it also.

[00:19:31] So let me get Chuck on next here.

[00:19:33] Hello, Chuck.

[00:19:34] Welcome to the show.

[00:19:36] Hello.

[00:19:36] How are you?

[00:19:37] Hey, I'm good.

[00:19:37] What's up?

[00:19:38] Well, I was just thinking back.

[00:19:42] In 16, the one produced a poll and their students and they had Trump down by 12 going into the private.

[00:19:57] He ended up winning big time.

[00:20:04] They had him only up by two.

[00:20:06] And they won by 18.

[00:20:11] So I was just thinking how worthless these polls are.

[00:20:16] And why would a political science professor who taught these kids, why would he want to put that out to the media?

[00:20:29] Very false.

[00:20:37] All right.

[00:20:38] So I'm not I'm not clear what polls you're talking about and that showed or the results that Trump won by 18.

[00:20:47] Yeah.

[00:20:48] And percentage points where what state was this?

[00:20:53] South Carolina.

[00:20:54] Oh, South Carolina.

[00:20:55] He won.

[00:20:56] He won South Carolina by 18 points.

[00:20:59] And so who is the college professor you're talking about?

[00:21:02] Well, I don't want to call his name because I actually think that he is a pretty good professor.

[00:21:11] Can't understand why they would say, you know, he would put that out to the public.

[00:21:17] Well, if you put the poll out before the election and then the election results show that you got the polling wrong, the polling's already out.

[00:21:26] Right.

[00:21:26] But his polls have already been proven to be faulty.

[00:21:31] Why would you still want to do it?

[00:21:35] Yeah.

[00:21:35] I don't know.

[00:21:36] I mean, I don't know who you're talking about.

[00:21:38] I don't know what their incentives would be if they've got funding to keep doing the polling or something.

[00:21:43] I don't know.

[00:21:45] Yeah.

[00:21:45] I think it's just calling around as a project.

[00:21:50] But yeah, that could be it, too.

[00:21:52] Maybe if he's using students to conduct the polling, then I mean, that's another variable in the mix that they could just not be very good at it.

[00:22:01] Yeah.

[00:22:02] Apparently they're not.

[00:22:03] Yeah.

[00:22:04] So, well, all right.

[00:22:06] Chuck, I appreciate the call, sir.

[00:22:07] Thank you.

[00:22:08] Let me head over and get Pete on.

[00:22:11] Hello, Pete.

[00:22:12] Welcome to the program.

[00:22:13] Love the name.

[00:22:13] All right.

[00:22:14] What's up?

[00:22:14] How are you, brother?

[00:22:15] Hey, what's up?

[00:22:16] I called you last week for the first time, so this is my second time calling.

[00:22:20] Oh, my gosh.

[00:22:21] This is going to become a habit now.

[00:22:23] I like you.

[00:22:25] I like the show and how honest you are.

[00:22:27] And even if someone's on the left, you let them express your opinion.

[00:22:31] That's good.

[00:22:33] Thing is, now, Orange Man Baird is in the White House again.

[00:22:38] Greatest comeback ever.

[00:22:40] He's got both chambers, right?

[00:22:42] Mm-hmm.

[00:22:42] He built better numbers with blacks, Latinos, Asians, and the Jewish vote.

[00:22:51] Mm-hmm.

[00:22:52] He can build a bigger base for two years from now, and who knows what could happen in four years.

[00:22:58] The only thing I'm worried about is how the Republicans can't seem to work together.

[00:23:05] Like, early in the year, the fiasco in the House of Representatives, they ousted McCarthy.

[00:23:13] And they'll be their own worst enemy.

[00:23:16] And like you said, Trump had over 50% of the vote.

[00:23:20] He's got a mandate.

[00:23:21] But if they're going to do this, and the voters know the media's corrupt, in fact, I think CNN is going to lay off people.

[00:23:30] Yep.

[00:23:30] And no one watches.

[00:23:32] No one subscribes to the newspapers.

[00:23:35] And it's up to the Republicans.

[00:23:37] Mm-hmm.

[00:23:38] You agree?

[00:23:39] Well, yeah.

[00:23:40] So, I mean, on the media stuff, yeah, people do not trust the media, and for good reason.

[00:23:47] And I think that's why we're seeing the reaction in the media world that we are seeing right now, where they're, like, freaking out because they realize that they don't have the influence that they have diluted themselves into thinking that they still retain.

[00:23:59] Right.

[00:24:00] So that's part of it.

[00:24:01] Yeah.

[00:24:02] I think on the Republicans, I mean, that's, like, both, I will, right.

[00:24:08] I understand that both parties think that the other party is better aligned, and they follow orders, and they are ruthless, and they will do the stuff we won't do.

[00:24:19] They both say this about the other team, right?

[00:24:21] The Democrats think that the Republicans all march in lockstep together, and Republicans say the same thing about Democrats.

[00:24:27] And I think they're both true and false at the same time, right?

[00:24:32] There are certain things that Republicans do fall in line together on, certain issues, and some things that they do not.

[00:24:37] And part of the problem the Republicans have had is that they had a narrow majority, and so that empowers fewer members of the conference.

[00:24:51] In other words, when you only have a two-vote majority in the House, now you become, as a swing voter, you can hold the majority hostage, right?

[00:25:01] Right.

[00:25:02] Because they need every one of the votes.

[00:25:03] If they've got a majority of 30 or 40 seats, then it doesn't matter, right?

[00:25:09] They could go ahead and just ram something through.

[00:25:12] They used to treat the Freedom Caucus like that, right?

[00:25:15] The Freedom Caucus used to say, no, no, don't do this thing.

[00:25:17] And Paul Ryan and John Boehner would say, screw you, we're going to do it anyway.

[00:25:22] And so then the Freedom Caucus started with these tactics of, we're going to join with the Democrats and block you.

[00:25:31] So, yeah, but, you know.

[00:25:33] You have to have people in there that are willing to put the country first.

[00:25:40] And I don't know if we have enough people in there, but we're going to find out.

[00:25:45] You know, we're going to find out.

[00:25:47] Yeah, go ahead.

[00:25:48] That's what I'm afraid of.

[00:25:49] That's what I'm afraid of.

[00:25:51] Yeah.

[00:25:51] If they do the same shenanigans as they did in the House.

[00:25:54] And they know what the voters have spoken.

[00:25:57] So I don't know.

[00:25:59] We'll find out.

[00:26:00] Yeah, we are.

[00:26:01] Yeah, Pete, I appreciate the call.

[00:26:02] We are going to find out.

[00:26:03] I mean, that's the people have to be patient right now as, you know, Trump's going to put

[00:26:08] together his team.

[00:26:09] I think he has a very short window to do any of this stuff.

[00:26:12] I think it's probably about a year and a half.

[00:26:15] That's what he's got to work with because he's a lame duck already.

[00:26:19] So he's going to have a very short window.

[00:26:21] And after about a year and a half, the members of Congress, they're going to be running for

[00:26:24] reelection again.

[00:26:26] And they're not going to want to, you know, engage in risky behavior that might get them

[00:26:31] unseated.

[00:26:32] And that is the historical trend is that the party in the White House loses seats in the

[00:26:37] midterms.

[00:26:37] So whatever he wants to do, he better do it really fast.

[00:26:42] But we'll see.

[00:26:43] A couple of messages to get to.

[00:26:45] I have been woefully inadequate keeping up with the with the communiques coming in on the

[00:26:51] transom.

[00:26:52] Um, so Brett says, Pete, everybody is so excited about Republicans having both House and Senate.

[00:27:00] Doesn't anybody remember they had both the first two years of Trump's first term and they didn't

[00:27:05] get much done then.

[00:27:06] Unless I missed something, it was mostly Trump doing executive orders, which I am strongly

[00:27:10] against as it's being widely used for all kinds of things it wasn't meant for.

[00:27:14] Why do people think it's going to be any different this time?

[00:27:17] Um, I think there is a chance that it will be different this time because you have a different

[00:27:23] leader in the House.

[00:27:25] There's going to be a different leader in the Senate, but we'll see what comes of that.

[00:27:29] Um, but also Trump's victory was such that he does have a mandate.

[00:27:38] That's the historical norm, right?

[00:27:39] That's the standard.

[00:27:41] You, you win as he has won, flipping all of these swing states, winning all the swim states,

[00:27:46] swing states rather, like his performance indicates this is what Americans want.

[00:27:52] Also, I think that the people that he is going to be having around him now are different.

[00:27:58] And, um, I think there is, I think there is less ability for the Trump people to be tricked

[00:28:13] as they were the first time.

[00:28:17] I think that's why people think it's going to be different.

[00:28:20] Will it be different?

[00:28:21] I don't know.

[00:28:22] I don't know.

[00:28:23] Um, Mike says, Pete, I just turned you on.

[00:28:27] I hear you talking about the governor election.

[00:28:28] Robinson got killed this election.

[00:28:30] However, he got killed because of that CNN story.

[00:28:33] If you just take that CNN story away, pretend like it never happened.

[00:28:37] I wonder how close the race would have been.

[00:28:39] Do you think it would have been possible for Robinson to have won?

[00:28:42] Uh, thanks for your show.

[00:28:44] I try to listen to you all the time.

[00:28:44] Thank you, Mike.

[00:28:45] I appreciate it.

[00:28:45] You can get the podcast by the way and listen whenever.

[00:28:48] Um, so I think it would have been closer, but if you were to go by the polling that we saw

[00:28:53] before the CNN story hit, um, he was already trailing.

[00:28:58] You know, I, I think that the amount of, of stories and videos and, and all, all of

[00:29:04] the stuff that had come out about him had done enough damage where it would have been an

[00:29:09] uphill battle.

[00:29:10] Now, that being said, had the Republican governors not pulled their advertising out of the state

[00:29:16] after the CNN story.

[00:29:17] And I think a lot of people abandoned him.

[00:29:21] I mean, his, almost his entire staff quit that first weekend.

[00:29:25] And that sends a message.

[00:29:27] These are the people that know him best.

[00:29:29] Some, like one of the guys that quit had been with him from literally the very beginning

[00:29:33] of his Lieutenant governor race.

[00:29:35] So I think that's, yeah, that did lethal damage to the campaign.

[00:29:41] Um, I think it may have been closer, but I don't know if he would have actually won,

[00:29:45] but I, I, I don't know.

[00:29:47] It's hard to, that's, that's hard to know.

[00:29:50] Um, Tim says, Pete, I think North Carolina voters on balance are bipolar.

[00:29:57] Maybe they need some type of medication.

[00:30:00] Well, that's look, I mean, the urban centers in North Carolina are going to push more of

[00:30:07] the statewide races to the Democrats and Republicans are going to need to crack the code there to

[00:30:16] figure out how to combat that.

[00:30:18] Will they be able to?

[00:30:20] I don't know.

[00:30:21] I don't know.

[00:30:22] But this is why Republicans, even in the urban areas, need to turn out and vote, even if they're

[00:30:28] not going to win their citywide races.

[00:30:30] All right.

[00:30:31] That'll do it for this episode.

[00:30:33] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:30:34] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise

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[00:30:48] Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.