Nevada court ruling on mail-in ballots; NC early vote strategy (10-29-2024--Hour2)

[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 thepetekalendershow.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.

[00:00:28] By the way, there is a website, carolinaelections.com. And it's put together by Andy Jackson over at the John Locke Foundation. It's called Vote Tracker. The website again, carolinaelections.com. And they track all of the votes that come in every single day.

[00:00:47] And so the status as compared to this time in 2020, you've got Democrats that are down in early voting by 341,000. Republicans are up by 9,000. And this is just in comparison to their turnout at the same time, right? Early voting four years ago.

[00:01:07] So Democrats have lost 340,000 plus. Republicans have gained about 9,000. Unaffiliated's down about 8,000. He says that Republicans expanded their turnout advantage by about 11,000 votes yesterday.

[00:01:24] I keep expecting the missing Democratic voters to show up, but they keep not showing up.

[00:01:31] Just seeing if there was something else here. I thought there may have been another point that he was.

[00:01:34] He says the real story is that well over a quarter million Democrats have not shown up so far.

[00:01:40] Okay, so that's the main story right now. This is subject to change, right?

[00:01:47] This could all change.

[00:01:49] In fact, I believe I just sent out a guy named Jeffrey Blair.

[00:01:56] He writes at National Review and he hosts Political Beats podcast where it's like a music podcast.

[00:02:05] He brings on like political people and they talk about music.

[00:02:08] Anyway, he said he worked in 2016.

[00:02:12] He was working in the, I think he said the BuzzFeed newsroom.

[00:02:17] And everybody in that newsroom was expecting a different result, let's say.

[00:02:24] They were expecting Hillary Clinton to win because of all the polling.

[00:02:30] Right?

[00:02:30] This is why the axiom exists.

[00:02:33] The only poll that matters is on Election Day.

[00:02:38] Or if you are in some states that keep counting ballots after Election Day, then like five days after.

[00:02:44] Right.

[00:02:45] So we have a ruling out of the Nevada Supreme Court.

[00:02:49] That.

[00:02:51] Affirmed.

[00:02:52] A lower court decision yesterday.

[00:02:55] So the Nevada Supreme Court.

[00:02:58] Said mail-in ballots can be counted if they arrive without a postmark up to three days after the election.

[00:03:10] So no postmark.

[00:03:11] They just show up at the in the mailbox ostensibly from the U.S. Postal Service.

[00:03:17] They arrive at the elections office three days after the election.

[00:03:21] No postmark.

[00:03:22] You can count it.

[00:03:22] You have to count it, actually.

[00:03:25] So this was a case that involved a look at the law and whether the law should treat no postmark the same as treating a smudgy one.

[00:03:39] That's not the Charlotte City Councilman James Smudgy Mitchell.

[00:03:41] This is like a like, you know, like the red ink has gotten kind of defaced a little bit.

[00:03:48] So it's hard to read.

[00:03:49] You can't really tell what the postmark is.

[00:03:51] But look, it obviously came from the Postal Service because nobody would be able to manufacture that.

[00:03:58] Anyway, a majority of the high court ruled that the state law requiring mail-in ballots to be counted even if the postmark cannot be determined.

[00:04:07] That's the language from the law.

[00:04:10] Cannot be determined.

[00:04:10] They said it applies to ballots without any postmark as well as ballots whose postmarks are illegible.

[00:04:20] The decision the decision served as a blow to Republicans who argued that the law should only apply to ballots whose postmarks are illegible, which, by the way, that is not a radical or illogical position to argue.

[00:04:36] Right.

[00:04:38] Right.

[00:04:38] The law says that the postmark cannot be determined.

[00:04:42] Which means what?

[00:04:44] That there's something there, not the absence of something that's hard to read, but that there is something there that's hard to read.

[00:04:55] If a voter, this is what the court said, if a voter properly and timely casts their vote by mailing their ballot before or on the day of the election and through a post office omission, the ballot is not postmarked.

[00:05:11] It would go against public policy to discount that properly cast vote.

[00:05:17] End quote.

[00:05:19] So here's my beef with the lawyers with the wardrobe change in Nevada that made this decision, which is.

[00:05:25] You say if a voter properly and timely casts their vote.

[00:05:31] Well, how do you know that occurred?

[00:05:34] If there's no postmark on it, then you don't know that it was timely cast.

[00:05:40] Right.

[00:05:41] Because that's the point of the postmark.

[00:05:43] See, this is why the North Carolina legislature changed the law back to what it was.

[00:05:50] And Democrats and media.

[00:05:52] But I repeat myself.

[00:05:53] They screamed bloody murder about how dare you, you know, undermine the democracy.

[00:05:59] By not counting ballots that arrive three days late after Election Day with smudged up or illegible postmarks or maybe not even have a postmark.

[00:06:10] I don't know.

[00:06:11] See, when you say, you know what, all of this stuff has to arrive by Election Day.

[00:06:15] It takes this question off the table.

[00:06:18] Right.

[00:06:20] And this is also why the ballots that North Carolina voters have in front of them today has a constitutional amendment included in it.

[00:06:32] Which is whether or not.

[00:06:36] Noncitizens can vote.

[00:06:38] In elections.

[00:06:41] And they want to put it in the state constitution that noncitizens cannot vote in elections.

[00:06:46] And Democrats and media, but I repeat myself, they keep saying this is redundant.

[00:06:51] This is going to disenfranchise.

[00:06:53] This is this is going to undermine the democracy.

[00:06:57] And it actually doesn't do that.

[00:06:59] It's kind of funny how on the one hand they're saying it's going to do all these terrible things.

[00:07:03] But on the other hand, they call it redundant.

[00:07:05] So which is it?

[00:07:06] Right.

[00:07:07] Which is it?

[00:07:07] Is it not needed because the law already says that and it's not happening?

[00:07:13] Or that your your your codification of this in the Constitution somehow is different?

[00:07:23] I will get to that.

[00:07:24] I will circle back to that.

[00:07:27] I also have audio from this program.

[00:07:29] In fact, let me start there.

[00:07:31] No.

[00:07:31] Oh, hang on.

[00:07:32] Hang on.

[00:07:32] Hang on.

[00:07:33] I got I have too much stuff.

[00:07:35] The prep pack is it's gotten too big.

[00:07:38] OK, I have too many.

[00:07:40] Things here to go over.

[00:07:41] All right.

[00:07:41] So and I you know me, I'm a professional.

[00:07:43] And so I try to segue these things and tie them together into like a into, you know, a

[00:07:49] story arc, if you will.

[00:07:51] But I have no script.

[00:07:52] So I'm only one man.

[00:07:54] So the Nevada Supreme Court says there is no principled distinction between mail ballots where the postmark is illegible or smudged and those with no postmark.

[00:08:09] In each instance, the date the mail ballot was received by the post office cannot be determined.

[00:08:18] So that's what they interpreted the law to me.

[00:08:21] They said, OK, if you get a smudgy postmark and you get no postmark, they both come in in the same batch three days after the election.

[00:08:33] You can't determine the date on either one of those ballots.

[00:08:41] And so if you're going to count the smudgy ones, you got to count the ones without a postmark, too.

[00:08:47] And I will say.

[00:08:49] That is also a logical argument.

[00:08:53] Which is why you should just ban them all.

[00:08:56] Right.

[00:08:57] That's what just ban them.

[00:09:01] Don't allow them after Election Day.

[00:09:04] Don't keep counting three days after the fact when everybody knows what the vote totals are.

[00:09:08] And now you're like, OK, now we need to just stuff a bunch of ballots into the mail and let them get there.

[00:09:14] Although you are relying on the Postal Service to get there within three days.

[00:09:17] So, I mean, that might be a flaw in the in the scam.

[00:09:21] But Election Day should be the deadline if they are not in the office on Election Day, which, by the way, today is Tuesday, a week before the election.

[00:09:32] You if you are planning to vote by mail, you need to do it today.

[00:09:36] Give the Postal Service a full week to get your mail in ballot delivered on time to the U.S. Postal Service.

[00:09:45] Oh, but Pete, that's an inconvenience to me.

[00:09:48] I should be able to vote on Election Day at 729 p.m. before the polls close.

[00:09:55] And that should count, too.

[00:09:58] Well, then vote in person.

[00:10:00] Seriously.

[00:10:01] Like, I am I am so fed up with this catering to the convenience of the laziest people in the society.

[00:10:12] Seriously.

[00:10:13] If you can't figure out how to get to a polling place or mail in your ballot.

[00:10:21] With the three weeks of voting period that we've got here.

[00:10:26] I think at some point, you know, you've got to take the training wheels off.

[00:10:29] I'm not going to hold your hand, fill in whatever metaphor or analogy you want here.

[00:10:33] But you've got to take some personal responsibility for voting.

[00:10:37] This is not on me to make sure you vote.

[00:10:40] Go vote.

[00:10:41] Right.

[00:10:42] Do it.

[00:10:43] The rules are there for everybody to read.

[00:10:46] If you don't care enough to know what the rules are and get your mail in ballot mailed in in advance.

[00:10:51] I mean, do you have the same problems with your credit card bills when you're mailing in your credit?

[00:10:56] Nobody does that anymore.

[00:10:58] But you're sending a birthday card to somebody.

[00:11:01] Nobody does that either.

[00:11:03] Does anybody even mail anything anymore?

[00:11:04] Yeah, we do.

[00:11:07] But if you want the card to arrive by the birthday, then you send it before.

[00:11:12] You send it a week prior.

[00:11:14] So you know that it's going to get there before the deadline.

[00:11:18] My God.

[00:11:20] We've infantilized the entire society.

[00:11:25] You're telling me you can't even figure out how to mail something by a deadline?

[00:11:29] That's how infantilized we've become?

[00:11:33] What an embarrassment.

[00:11:36] The high court upheld the district court decision that the GOP lacked standing, saying the plaintiffs did not provide sufficient evidence that the mail in ballots would be subject to vote fraud or that the security measures in place were inadequate to address concern.

[00:11:50] What measures?

[00:11:51] The measure about making sure the postal service had it and sent it to you on time.

[00:11:57] You're saying that that doesn't matter.

[00:11:59] There isn't a security measure on that front.

[00:12:02] Nevada is one of the seven key battleground states that could play a consequential role in determining the outcome of the election.

[00:12:08] According to the Hill slash Decision Desk HQ's polling average in Nevada, Trump has a narrow 0.9 percent lead over Harris.

[00:12:20] Forty eight point one to forty seven point two.

[00:12:23] But don't know if that's going to actually be the results.

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[00:13:29] Email is Pete at thepetecalendorshow.com.

[00:13:32] Dennis.

[00:13:33] He says, Pete.

[00:13:34] It's a Pete mail.

[00:13:35] He says, it's become quite obvious to me that the principal platform of the Harris-Walls campaign can be summed up in the words of WCB.

[00:13:42] Fields, who said, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with BS.

[00:13:50] Well, to be fair, I think you've described like 90% of the political campaigns ever.

[00:13:56] Let's go over and talk with Pete.

[00:13:58] Hello, Pete.

[00:13:59] Welcome to the program.

[00:14:01] Hey, Pete.

[00:14:01] Hey.

[00:14:02] Hey, I agree with you about getting those ballots in by Election Day.

[00:14:06] I mean, you know, your vote's your responsibility, you know?

[00:14:10] Right.

[00:14:10] And you've got to get it in.

[00:14:11] Here's my thing on this thing in Nevada.

[00:14:15] It's been online on X discussing it with some people there.

[00:14:19] And basically, the defense that Democrats will use is, Pete, it's only going to be a couple of ballots.

[00:14:24] Mm-hmm.

[00:14:24] Okay.

[00:14:25] Which is this...

[00:14:26] Because it's normally...

[00:14:26] But here's the problem with that, Pete, is if they show up with 15,000 ballots on the third day after Election Day without postmarks, but otherwise qualified ballots, they're going to count.

[00:14:40] Right.

[00:14:41] And even...

[00:14:41] The law is going to make a stipend.

[00:14:43] Well, and even if those ballots are, in fact, legitimate, let's say every one of that cash, that box of ballots that comes from the Postal Service, let's say every single one of them doesn't have a postmark, but every single one was cast legitimately and the post office just screwed up.

[00:15:00] Right?

[00:15:00] Let's just assume that for the sake of the argument.

[00:15:03] Even so, it undermines confidence in the system because people don't know for sure if they are, in fact, legitimate or not.

[00:15:14] And that's a major problem that the elections officials and lawmakers and we all in this society would then have to grapple with because you will always have the claims that the elections were rigged.

[00:15:30] Certainly.

[00:15:31] And the reason why they're doing this, you and I both should know anyway, is so they can, let's just put it delicately, go around the law.

[00:15:41] Okay?

[00:15:42] Well, my problem is if they do it in Nevada and get away with it, what's to prevent them from doing it in Pennsylvania and Michigan?

[00:15:48] Well, this is why you need to write laws that lock this stuff down, right?

[00:15:55] That make it very explicit and that limit this kind of chicanery.

[00:15:59] And we can only do what we can do in our own state at this.

[00:16:04] But now I will say if Republicans end up getting control of the House, the Senate and the presidency, then maybe they should go run a bill and make it a law that says, no, you have to have a postmark and it has to come by Election Day.

[00:16:19] It has to be in the elections office on Election Day by the time polls close.

[00:16:23] That could be a federal law.

[00:16:26] Do you know how the Constitution reads on Election Day?

[00:16:30] The same way it reads every other day.

[00:16:32] Well, it reads explicitly, right?

[00:16:36] Winner elections every four years on the second Tuesday in November.

[00:16:42] Right.

[00:16:42] That's it.

[00:16:43] I mean, to me, that's explicit, right?

[00:16:45] That's telling you, that is the day.

[00:16:47] I don't even know.

[00:16:48] I'm not crazy about early voting, to be honest with you.

[00:16:50] But that is what the Constitution says.

[00:16:54] Right.

[00:16:54] So get rid of it.

[00:16:55] Right.

[00:16:55] OK.

[00:16:56] So.

[00:16:56] All right.

[00:16:56] And what's the point there?

[00:16:58] Well, the point is, like you said, counting ballots after Election Day.

[00:17:03] The day's gone.

[00:17:05] The day's gone.

[00:17:06] That Tuesday is gone.

[00:17:07] Right.

[00:17:07] It's not that following.

[00:17:08] My understanding.

[00:17:09] Right.

[00:17:10] But my understanding is that they have, courts have allowed the counting of the ballots that

[00:17:14] have arrived by Election Day.

[00:17:18] Right.

[00:17:18] They arrive by Election Day.

[00:17:20] But because there's so many votes to count, they can't count them all by the end of the

[00:17:23] day.

[00:17:24] So is it, are you saying that if you don't get all the ballots counted by the end of the

[00:17:28] day, then they don't count at all?

[00:17:30] That's the way I would do it.

[00:17:31] I don't know how France manages to count all their votes, you know, and all these.

[00:17:35] And we used to be able to do this, right?

[00:17:36] I mean, it used to not be a problem.

[00:17:38] No.

[00:17:39] I mean, there have been mail-in ballots, overseas ballots from military that would come in and

[00:17:44] they would get counted.

[00:17:45] And then they do the canvas 10 days after.

[00:17:47] That's prescribed by law.

[00:17:48] So they do the, they audit them, they recount them.

[00:17:51] So there are all these different mechanisms in place to try to, you know, go back and make

[00:17:56] sure that they got accurate tallies along the way.

[00:17:58] So, yeah, no, I mean, it's one thing for the actual process of the counting to occur

[00:18:04] and to let all of the ballots be counted.

[00:18:07] You know, polls close at 730.

[00:18:09] And then, you know, you've got some counties that, I mean, you got counties of millions

[00:18:13] of people, you know?

[00:18:15] And then I also hear this, oh, we got to go back to a paper ballot only.

[00:18:17] Well, how do you, how do you expect all of those things to get counted in, in counties

[00:18:22] with millions and millions of, of ballots?

[00:18:24] It's just, it's, yeah, I don't know.

[00:18:26] But I think there are, I think there are practical things you can do to secure the vote.

[00:18:30] And this is one of them.

[00:18:32] Let me get to some of this audio because I had it yesterday and I never got to play it

[00:18:36] because I was running my mouth.

[00:18:37] And it is about, well, it comes from a program on the PBS called State Lines hosted by Kelly

[00:18:46] McCullen.

[00:18:47] All right.

[00:18:48] This first clip, you're going to hear Paul Shoemaker, Republican strategist guy, consultant

[00:18:53] guy.

[00:18:53] He says he expects the early voting number to continue to grow.

[00:18:59] And he says, and right now we're at like 30 something percent turnout.

[00:19:03] He expects it to be 50 percent turnout in just the early votes.

[00:19:10] And that's driven by technology.

[00:19:12] We're able today to, first of all, we know who votes every day.

[00:19:15] And so we're able to go out and start communicating from a campaign perspective.

[00:19:19] And we can send you a text message and say that the wait time at this early voting site

[00:19:24] is less than five minutes.

[00:19:26] That's close to you.

[00:19:27] And so what you have now is you have technology driving the game.

[00:19:30] The old, the days of going door to door, the days of door to door is only to those who

[00:19:35] are low propensity voters, mid propensity voters, high propensity voters.

[00:19:39] They're getting a whole different level of communication.

[00:19:42] Uh, and it allows technology to work.

[00:19:44] It allows just because of our mobile devices and what we have, that's going to help increase

[00:19:48] participation.

[00:19:49] So I got a visit the other day though.

[00:19:53] On Sunday, some kid came to the door.

[00:19:56] I think he was a Democrat.

[00:19:58] I shoot him away nicely, of course, but I was like, I'm eating dinner.

[00:20:02] I'm going to vote, you know, Monday, get out of my, I work in news talk.

[00:20:05] I know who I'm voting for scram.

[00:20:06] So, um, I'm not a low propensity voter.

[00:20:11] What does that mean?

[00:20:13] If what Shoemaker just said is correct, does that mean the Democrats are wasting money knocking

[00:20:20] on my door?

[00:20:22] Because I'm a high propensity voter.

[00:20:24] Maybe that's why that, maybe they have a different strategy.

[00:20:27] I don't know.

[00:20:28] Shoemaker then goes on to say North Carolina has added about 490,000 active voters.

[00:20:36] So people who are actively voting, registered to vote and all that, we've added almost half

[00:20:41] a million active voters since the 2020 election in just four years.

[00:20:46] During that period of time.

[00:20:47] So, you know, that makeup of 440,000 of them are independents, 40,000 are Republicans, and

[00:20:52] then the rest are Democrats.

[00:20:54] We've had a net purge of 1.7 million.

[00:20:58] We actually added 1.7 million new voters.

[00:21:01] We had a purge of 1.2 million.

[00:21:03] That's where that number comes from.

[00:21:04] And what we're seeing this time, and I'm very encouraged with what we're seeing on

[00:21:07] early voting is, is that Republicans and Democrats are performing right about the same

[00:21:12] levels.

[00:21:13] Unaffiliates are not there right now.

[00:21:15] And so, Morgan, I agree with you.

[00:21:17] I think that there's swing voters are waiting late in the game to see if there's any last

[00:21:21] minute surprises.

[00:21:23] However, when you look at the performance and everything from what's encouraging, Wake

[00:21:27] County is voting at higher levels.

[00:21:29] But Wake County has added more new voters in the last four years than any other county

[00:21:33] in the state.

[00:21:34] Mecklenburg, surprisingly, is off of the 2020 mark.

[00:21:37] And Mecklenburg is the second largest county.

[00:21:40] So that's probably...

[00:21:41] So I see Mecklenburg and Wake County canceling themselves out.

[00:21:44] And rural turnout continues to be strong for Republicans.

[00:21:47] Rural turnout.

[00:21:48] Did you hear, though, what he said about the numbers?

[00:21:50] Out of the 490,000, like 440,000 of them are unaffiliated.

[00:21:57] 40,000 of the rest, then, are Republican and 10,000 are Democrats.

[00:22:02] That's what he just said.

[00:22:03] So this idea that, you know, everybody's moving here and they're registering as Democrats

[00:22:08] because they come from New York or California, I'm not so sure that's the case.

[00:22:13] Yes, there are Democrats moving here.

[00:22:15] Absolutely.

[00:22:16] Yes, Democrats are coming here and they're registering as unaffiliated.

[00:22:19] Absolutely.

[00:22:19] But not 440,000 out of 440,000.

[00:22:24] He mentioned Morgan Jackson.

[00:22:27] Morgan Jackson was also on the panel discussion.

[00:22:29] He's a Democrat strategist, consultant guy, works for Josh Stein, Roy Cooper.

[00:22:34] They have not seen a lot of low propensity voters turning out yet, he says.

[00:22:39] But he says it's on both sides.

[00:22:42] When you think about Republicans in general, we were looking at...

[00:22:44] I've been looking at this every day because a lot of folks on my side of the aisle are

[00:22:48] sweating like, wait a minute, what does this mean?

[00:22:50] These are voters who voted in 20.

[00:22:52] They voted either on election day or they voted early, late.

[00:22:55] So they're just Republicans who are voting earlier.

[00:22:58] And Mitch is exactly right.

[00:22:59] It's what happens when you see Trump and folks and allies embrace early voting rather than say,

[00:23:05] no, do it, it's fraud, don't do it.

[00:23:06] They are encouraging Republicans to vote early.

[00:23:09] So, of course, they're running program, do it.

[00:23:10] Republicans are saying, I'm not going to wait until election day or the last weekend before

[00:23:14] the election.

[00:23:15] I'm going to vote early.

[00:23:16] And the last thing I'll say is what we traditionally see in early voting is the first Thursday

[00:23:21] through Sunday, Democrats run up this ridiculous number and score.

[00:23:25] But the week that we just had, Republicans generally catch up.

[00:23:29] And so Republicans, even as early voters, have been later early voters in history past.

[00:23:34] They're just voting earlier this time.

[00:23:35] But again, it's not new voters.

[00:23:36] It's just mode switching.

[00:23:37] OK, so essentially that's a cannibalizing argument that the Republicans are just cannibalizing

[00:23:42] their election day votes.

[00:23:44] That's what he says.

[00:23:45] Problem with his analysis is that, in my view, is that.

[00:23:51] Democrat turnout is down.

[00:23:53] So he said Democrats usually run up this ridiculous number in the first three, four days.

[00:23:58] They didn't do that.

[00:23:59] Shoemaker then responds to this.

[00:24:01] Shoemaker now responds to this argument from Morgan Jackson, the Democrat strategist.

[00:24:08] Again, this is from State Lines on PBS.

[00:24:09] You can watch it on the YouTube.

[00:24:12] He says the GOP is not cannibalizing their election day vote.

[00:24:16] In fact, election day voters on Democratic side is higher than what Republican election

[00:24:21] day voting is.

[00:24:22] Also, I can tell you, 18 percent of low-propensity Republican voters are voted compared to 4 percent

[00:24:26] on the Democratic side.

[00:24:28] Those are the kind of analysis that we do.

[00:24:29] So I've become very bullish on what the turnout looks like right now.

[00:24:34] You've got a black vote that's actually lower than what it was in 2020, which is very

[00:24:38] problematic.

[00:24:39] It's usually higher in early voting.

[00:24:40] And so right now what you're seeing take place is a very, very strong Republican turnout in

[00:24:45] early voting.

[00:24:46] And that has been driven, quite frankly.

[00:24:48] We have invested.

[00:24:49] We got, the Republicans got shellacked in 2008, and we have not been, we have invested heavily.

[00:24:55] So you're seeing a 10-year investment program being played out.

[00:24:59] It's been an ongoing elevation.

[00:25:01] Highly data-based, highly technology-based.

[00:25:05] It's not as much as it boots on the ground as it used to be.

[00:25:09] And right now the numbers are bearing very strongly on the Republican side.

[00:25:13] Shoemaker then goes on to say that every voter in North Carolina has a unique voter ID number.

[00:25:19] The State Board of Elections post who votes.

[00:25:21] It is a very simple process to determine who has voted and who has not voted.

[00:25:27] Also, we know who the early voters are and we know who the election day voters are.

[00:25:30] I mean, it's a very simple program.

[00:25:33] And right now, I mean, I can tell you that Republicans are not cannibalizing their election day turnout.

[00:25:38] And we've not seen, and there's a myth that Republicans don't like to vote early.

[00:25:44] No, we have invested heavily in early vote.

[00:25:47] We have our vote goals that we want to achieve in early voting.

[00:25:49] We have our election day vote goals.

[00:25:51] Right now we're exceeding our early voting vote goals.

[00:25:55] And while he is bullish on the GOP chances, you just heard him say, he said we are a still very evenly divided state.

[00:26:04] And if you win a landslide election in North Carolina, that's 1.5 percentage points.

[00:26:09] When a landslide is 52-48?

[00:26:12] Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:12] You won't see a 52.

[00:26:14] You may see a 50-42-2 for somebody else or whatever else.

[00:26:21] Tom, tell us one or two U.S. Senate races never clipped 50% yet.

[00:26:25] That's the dynamics of this state.

[00:26:28] We are a state.

[00:26:29] The presidential race, right now I say I'm bullish, but keep in mind being bullish in the presidential race for Donald Trump means a 50,000 to 70,000 vote margin of victory.

[00:26:38] Out of 5.5 million or more voters.

[00:26:42] I mean, think about that.

[00:26:43] Yeah.

[00:26:44] 50,000 votes spread out of 5.5 million votes.

[00:26:48] And that voice you heard there at the end of the clip, that was Morgan Jackson, the Democrat strategist.

[00:26:53] All of these races, the president, these statewide council state races, the judicial races are going to be really tight.

[00:26:59] I mean, this is, as we're talking about the data and we talked about the late deciders, they are going to decide, because you're talking about 2 to 3 to 4 percent of the voters, that when you're talking about a 50.5 to a 49.5 winner loss for a lot of these candidates, you end up in a place where these late deciders are going to have a huge impact.

[00:27:20] Right. And so when you have margins that are that slim, you end up with recounts that candidates can demand legally.

[00:27:30] And you also then raise the prospects of, you know, vote fraud having an effect on the outcome of elections, which is why this stuff is so important.

[00:27:41] Jackson then explains that unaffiliated are not really independents.

[00:27:46] I know people like to say, oh, I'm an independent.

[00:27:47] You're not actually an independent.

[00:27:49] Most unaffiliated are not really independent.

[00:27:52] All right.

[00:27:53] And you're going to hear Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation chime in here as well.

[00:27:57] Well, Paul and I laugh about this all the time is everybody thinks if you're an unaffiliated voter, you're truly up for grabs.

[00:28:02] The reality is what I'm going to do.

[00:28:03] Right.

[00:28:03] Most most unaffiliated voters are largely lean one way or the other.

[00:28:09] The national parties, their brands are in have been in the tank for years.

[00:28:13] And so it's so easy to register as unaffiliated.

[00:28:16] But the reality to it, most unaffiliated lean one way or the other.

[00:28:21] And it depends on college education.

[00:28:22] It depends on location, race, gender, whether you have kids in your house.

[00:28:26] All of those things help us.

[00:28:28] And Paul and I will tell you, you might be an unaffiliated voter in suburban Wake County with two kids in public schools.

[00:28:33] I know how you're going to vote.

[00:28:34] If you're an unaffiliated voter in Randolph County who's non-college educated, I know how you're going to vote too.

[00:28:39] And remember, North Carolina law makes it advantageous in some ways to be unaffiliated because you could vote in either primary.

[00:28:46] You're not banned from one party or the other.

[00:28:48] One thing to understand is the way a gubernatorial campaign or a U.S. Senate campaign will operate is that everybody talks about polling, polling, polling.

[00:28:57] We focus, Morgan and I focus on data analytics.

[00:28:59] And the fact of the matter is, is that the average voter today, we have six to eight thousand data points per voter.

[00:29:05] And that's because of your search engine habits that you use with your phones.

[00:29:09] It's because of your lifestyle, your purchasing habits.

[00:29:12] And so unaffiliated get scored.

[00:29:14] Unaffiliated get scored at those that lean Democratic, those that lean Republican, those that are hard R, those that are pure swing.

[00:29:20] And when you look at pure swing, you look at that issue set.

[00:29:23] And then you go start that conversation with those voters.

[00:29:26] But the fact of the matter is, we know more today than ever before because of the probability model.

[00:29:30] There you go.

[00:29:32] The data that they scrape out of these apps and off of the websites and stuff are used to predict your voting habits.

[00:29:41] The host, Kelly McCullen, asked about the conventional wisdom, which is, you know, New Yorkers are coming here voting Democrat.

[00:29:49] Like Floridians are coming here voting Republican.

[00:29:51] What about that?

[00:29:52] A lot of it depends on where you come from.

[00:29:54] A lot of it depends on where you end up.

[00:29:55] If you're a retiree and you're unaffiliated and you move from regardless of where and you move to Hendersonville or you move to Brunswick County, you're more likely to be a Republican.

[00:30:06] If you're a college educated voter who's moving to the Triangle or to Mecklenburg because your job has moved to North Carolina or corporate headquarters or a high paying job, you're more likely to vote Democratic.

[00:30:18] And it really, again, and Paul and I talk about this a lot.

[00:30:22] College education has become a the best indicator of vote than we then race, gender, age, things that used to give you a better idea.

[00:30:34] The truth is college education points you more of how you're going to vote than just about any other thing at this point.

[00:30:39] A realignment of the parties.

[00:30:43] Shoemaker, then this last clip, Shoemaker said Josh Stein is the only statewide candidate right now that has crossover voting, at least according to the polls.

[00:30:56] Yeah, he's getting double digit Republican support.

[00:30:58] He's getting around 12 to 16 percent Republican vote.

[00:31:01] Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, six to seven percent.

[00:31:04] We have since both parties have gotten smaller, there's less crossover voting.

[00:31:09] You have the behavioral Republicans, behavioral Democrats are unaffiliated.

[00:31:13] Those are former Democrats, former Republicans who left their party over the last 10, 20 years.

[00:31:18] They still have that allegiance there.

[00:31:20] And then we have about 12 percent swing class voting there.

[00:31:23] Josh Stein is winning unaffiliated by large margins.

[00:31:27] He's also pulling a double digit with with Republicans.

[00:31:31] That's not much about Josh Stein.

[00:31:33] It's more about Mark Robinson.

[00:31:37] This is what has Republicans down ballot concerned is that Robinson is actually going to hurt Republicans down the ballot, not Donald Trump.

[00:31:48] Because of that right there.

[00:31:50] You may not like it.

[00:31:52] You may not agree.

[00:31:52] But that's got that's got the down ballot race candidates concerned.

[00:31:58] All right.

[00:31:58] That'll do it for this episode.

[00:32:00] Thank you so much for listening.

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[00:32:15] Again, thank you so much for listening.

[00:32:17] And don't break anything while I'm gone.

[00:32:18] Bye, everyone.

[00:32:19] Bye, everybody.