The Seven Swings of the Apocalypse (11-05-2024--Hour1)

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[00:00:28] I always start on Election Day, if I remember, to offer my keen prediction, which is it all comes down to turnout. Oh, sorry, also, it'll be interesting to see. Because that's what people say when they don't know what to say and they are making a prediction that they have no idea will come true.

[00:00:53] And look, that is, look, there are going to be people that will predict correctly what happens today. And they will claim afterwards that they knew it because of, you know, whatever reasons. But they're guessing. This is a toss up.

[00:01:13] That's like, I have read too much over the last month or so to arrive at any other conclusion. You're getting so many conflicting analyses coming out and insider this and pollster that and whatever.

[00:01:35] It is going to be close for the presidential race. That's what it appears like right now. Does that mean that that's what's going to happen? No, that's just a prediction too. It's all just predictions. And here's the thing. If you're wrong, you've lost nothing.

[00:01:58] Right. You can make most of the people that are making predictions. Well, at least half of them are going to be wrong because they're predicting whoever the loser is going to be.

[00:02:09] They're predicting they won and vice versa. So there's very limited value in the predictions game.

[00:02:16] That's why I don't do it anymore. I don't trust the polling. It's just it's it's just lazy horse race journalism.

[00:02:27] And it's I feel like it's a way that a lot of outlets avoid having to do actual deep dive analyses on policies.

[00:02:41] There is a term in media. Called well, now it's called POS. I'm not kidding. It used to be called MOS.

[00:02:52] It was called the man on the street interview, the MOS. And then, of course, you couldn't call it the man on the street because you would interview.

[00:03:01] Well, women, too, but also, you know, I guess everybody that doesn't identify as either a man or a woman as well.

[00:03:07] But OK, whatever point is that you would go around and you would stick a mic in people's faces and you would ask them questions.

[00:03:14] And and then you would put all of the responses into like a montage and you would play, you know, here's Joe and Joe thinks this and here's Jane and Jane thinks that and whatever.

[00:03:25] And that has like zero news value because all it does is tell you what those individual people were thinking at that given moment with whatever information they had at that time, which could be nothing.

[00:03:41] Right. They could literally have no idea what you're asking them about and responding to your question.

[00:03:48] And then it gets into a news story and you would think, oh, well, a reporter should check and make sure that they know what they're talking about.

[00:03:56] Yeah, they don't do that. They don't do that.

[00:03:59] And that's kind of like polling because you're trying to get samples.

[00:04:04] And look, I'm not trying to knock pollsters. They're trying to do for the most part.

[00:04:08] I think a lot of them are trying to do the work well and they want to be right.

[00:04:12] Same thing with like these exit polls.

[00:04:15] But the exit polls, they're not really great on the predictive nature of things.

[00:04:21] So just because some media outlet is predicting one that a race is going to go a certain way, it doesn't actually mean that that's the way it's going to go.

[00:04:29] Now, are they usually more correct than not?

[00:04:34] I think so. Yeah, probably.

[00:04:35] But not always.

[00:04:37] Right. There have been famous examples of it.

[00:04:40] Florida, for example. Right.

[00:04:41] And if you weren't paying attention or old enough or alive to witness what happened in Florida in 2000, it's the reason why Florida now is able to count every one of their votes on Election Day.

[00:04:54] I think they finish their tabulations by the end of the day because they were so embarrassed as a state by the way the 2000 election unfolded.

[00:05:07] I mean, it was a comedy of dumbassery.

[00:05:10] It really was watching everything unfold.

[00:05:14] And you had the ballots and they were running them through the machines and then doing recounts, all this stuff.

[00:05:18] And the ballots were these paper ballots with the little punch outs, you know, like you would run the card through and then it would punch out whatever you like.

[00:05:29] If you wanted to vote for a person, you had a little stylus pen or whatever, and you would punch through the card and then the machine would read.

[00:05:38] Where the holes were.

[00:05:40] And then you but the more you ran the cards through the machines, the more these little chads they were called, the more they would fall apart.

[00:05:51] And so the more recounts you were doing.

[00:05:55] The muddier the waters became.

[00:05:58] And that's what the hanging chad deal was about.

[00:06:01] And people holding up these cards and trying to divine voter intent because, you know, oh, we punched through with the stylus and then it didn't go there.

[00:06:10] But the chad didn't punch all the way through or just made a little indent.

[00:06:14] And, oh, I think that they meant to press that one.

[00:06:16] Stuff like that.

[00:06:19] So Florida was so embarrassed that they overhauled their election system.

[00:06:23] And now they run one of the best operations, apparently, in the United States.

[00:06:32] That being said, there are states that are already saying we're not going to know for several days who won.

[00:06:39] I think I saw Nevada came out and said that.

[00:06:43] Because nothing.

[00:06:44] And look, if you can't trust Nevada elections, I mean, really, where can you put your trust in?

[00:06:52] Wait a minute.

[00:06:53] Vegas might have some problem.

[00:06:55] OK.

[00:06:56] There are better ways to do this.

[00:07:00] At this point, if your election system.

[00:07:06] Cannot give us a winner.

[00:07:09] By the end of the night.

[00:07:12] That's a choice.

[00:07:13] I firmly believe this.

[00:07:15] This is a choice at this point.

[00:07:17] Because there are ways to do it.

[00:07:20] There are states that have done it.

[00:07:21] There are large states that do it well.

[00:07:23] There are small states that do it well.

[00:07:26] There are models for you to adopt.

[00:07:30] And so if you still cannot figure out how to run an election.

[00:07:37] Then you are incompetent.

[00:07:40] Or there is a reason why you don't want the results to be known immediately.

[00:07:46] Now, that being said.

[00:07:48] There is a process.

[00:07:51] And it takes a couple of days.

[00:07:54] For example, the one you may be most familiar with is the 10-day canvas.

[00:08:00] That's what they call it.

[00:08:02] A canvas.

[00:08:03] Where after election day, you got 10 days to certify the results.

[00:08:07] The elections office has 10 days.

[00:08:09] And they certify the results.

[00:08:11] Which means they grab certain batches at random.

[00:08:14] And they recheck the ballots.

[00:08:16] And they do an audit, basically.

[00:08:18] A randomized audit.

[00:08:19] This is North Carolina's process.

[00:08:21] And they will do a randomized audit.

[00:08:22] And they'll say, okay, did the numbers come out to be the same?

[00:08:25] And once they confirm that their results were accurate, then they certify them.

[00:08:36] So the next 10 days are going to get a little bit crazy.

[00:08:42] That's my expectation.

[00:08:45] That's what I always prepare for.

[00:08:47] Have been of this mindset since the Mecklenburg County Commissioner's race 20 years ago, I think it was.

[00:08:58] When Parks-Helms, the incumbent chairman, lost.

[00:09:03] And then didn't.

[00:09:06] I remember talking to him.

[00:09:08] I got him on the phone.

[00:09:10] And he was a Democrat chairman.

[00:09:12] And I was talking with him.

[00:09:14] And his wife was very Eleanor.

[00:09:16] She was very excited because she always wanted him to be done with politics.

[00:09:20] And he would just keep running.

[00:09:22] And so he talked about how she was very happy.

[00:09:26] Because now he'll spend more time at home.

[00:09:29] And then it turns out, oh, we found a whole bunch of these ballots.

[00:09:33] And these are provisional ballots.

[00:09:35] And the rules have changed on the provisional ballot stuff.

[00:09:40] And then it turned out, oh, look at that.

[00:09:41] He squeaks in.

[00:09:42] And then, of course, he tried to be like a co-chair of the county commission.

[00:09:46] And that didn't go very well.

[00:09:47] Anyway, some of these states I am suspicious of.

[00:09:56] And I believe at this point, if you cannot figure it out, that's got to be by choice.

[00:10:02] That being said, there are 13 swing state counties that Axios has identified that we're going to want to pay attention to because these counties around America will be your sort of cheat sheet for tonight.

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[00:11:26] All right, Axios.com runs through 13 counties to be watching on election night.

[00:11:35] At least that's their advice.

[00:11:37] Okay, so they say if you want to know which way the race is going on election night, this is your cheat sheet.

[00:11:44] In 2016, when Trump first won, more than 200 counties that had voted for Obama in 2012 went for Trump.

[00:11:55] All right, so over 200 counties.

[00:11:57] Obama flipped to Trump.

[00:11:59] In 2020, less than half that number switched from Trump to Biden.

[00:12:08] But the ones that did were enough to flip Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

[00:12:21] Okay, so those five states plus Nevada and North Carolina.

[00:12:28] These are the seven swings of the apocalypse.

[00:12:32] The seven swings.

[00:12:34] These seven states, we are one of them.

[00:12:37] The seven swings.

[00:12:38] Again, Arizona, maybe we'll come up with an acronym for this.

[00:12:41] Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, and North Carolina.

[00:12:50] The seven swings.

[00:12:53] So let me start with the two that they've identified from North Carolina.

[00:12:58] Number one, Nash County.

[00:13:01] Located near Raleigh, Nash County flipped from Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020.

[00:13:06] But both Trump and Biden won Nash County by a razor thin two-tenths of a point.

[00:13:16] In the midterms, in 2022, Senator Ted Budd won the count.

[00:13:23] I say it like that because that's how Trump said it.

[00:13:25] And I just find it, I don't know, fun to say.

[00:13:27] So Senator Ted Budd won the county by seven points.

[00:13:31] The candidate who carried Nash County also carried the state in each of the past three presidential elections.

[00:13:42] They do not mention this, but I will throw this in.

[00:13:46] Roy Cooper is not on the ballot.

[00:13:50] Roy Cooper has been on the statewide ballot for, what, 24 years?

[00:13:57] I think because he was attorney general for 16 and then he was governor, ran for governor, you know, in two different elections, obviously one.

[00:14:07] So that's 24 years that Roy Cooper has been on the ballot.

[00:14:11] Why is that important?

[00:14:12] Roy Cooper is from Nash County.

[00:14:15] So this is the first time we are going to see in my time covering politics in North Carolina and elections.

[00:14:21] I've never seen a race without Roy Cooper running statewide.

[00:14:26] And I'm curious, like, is Nash County now going to see different kinds of results because the local boy isn't on the statewide ballot?

[00:14:35] I don't know.

[00:14:37] All right.

[00:14:37] So as I said, this election all comes down to turnout, as every election does, which is why I mock it as a as an analyst point.

[00:14:45] Every single election cycle, my obligatory, it all comes down to turnout.

[00:14:50] And Russ points out that's like the coaches who say the key to the game is going to be outscoring our opponents and keeping them from scoring.

[00:14:58] Like, yeah, that's.

[00:14:59] Yeah.

[00:15:00] The key to victory today at the polls will be whether or not we get more votes.

[00:15:07] Yes.

[00:15:08] That's a bold strategy.

[00:15:10] Cotton will see if it works out for them.

[00:15:12] All right.

[00:15:13] Axios dot com runs through 13 counties across the country that are essentially bellwether.

[00:15:20] counties.

[00:15:20] Right.

[00:15:21] These they call it the cheat sheet.

[00:15:24] That how these counties go could indicate.

[00:15:27] And again, this is all predictive.

[00:15:28] So they don't know this stuff.

[00:15:30] Nobody knows.

[00:15:31] That's why we play the game.

[00:15:33] Sorry.

[00:15:33] That's why we have elections and they have consequences.

[00:15:39] And everything I'm seeing, it's like people are making predictions, but the data is all very, very close.

[00:15:46] And so I don't know what to make of it.

[00:15:48] So I'm not offering any kind of expertise.

[00:15:50] And I gave that up in 2016 anyway.

[00:15:52] All right.

[00:15:53] So Nash County is one of the counties that Axios identifies as one to watch nationally.

[00:15:58] Nash County is one because it went to Trump in 16.

[00:16:02] It went to Biden in 20.

[00:16:04] But both of them won it by razor thin margins.

[00:16:08] Midterms, different situation.

[00:16:10] Ted Budd carried it easily.

[00:16:12] Seven point victory.

[00:16:14] But as I point out, but Axios does not.

[00:16:17] Roy Cooper is not on the ballot.

[00:16:19] Roy Cooper is from Nash County.

[00:16:21] So the local son is not on a statewide ballot.

[00:16:26] And so does that have any kind of an impact?

[00:16:28] I don't know.

[00:16:30] Next up.

[00:16:32] North Carolina, Cabarrus County.

[00:16:35] Cabarrus County, not to be confused with the restaurant.

[00:16:39] That's Carrabba's spelled completely different.

[00:16:41] Cabarrus County, suburb of Charlotte, has gone red in the previous two elections.

[00:16:48] Though Trump's margin shrunk from 20 points when he first won in 2016.

[00:16:53] He won by 20 points there to just nine.

[00:16:56] If Trump wins this county by five points or less,

[00:17:03] then the thinking here is that Kamala Harris has a decent shot in the state.

[00:17:10] Right?

[00:17:11] So it's not that Cabarrus County is going to flip blue.

[00:17:14] It's that it's going to be closer than nine points.

[00:17:18] If it's under five, according to Dave Wasserman, one of these analyst guys,

[00:17:23] he says she's got a decent shot to win the state because Cabarrus County is reflective

[00:17:28] of other voting patterns throughout the state.

[00:17:31] And if Trump loses that kind of support, and I'm thinking this is going to be among suburban women, right?

[00:17:37] He loses a lot more of those votes.

[00:17:40] Then it's going to turn into a good chance for Harris.

[00:17:44] All right.

[00:17:45] So those are the two North Carolina counties, Nash County and Cabarrus County.

[00:17:48] But there are others.

[00:17:48] There are 11 other counties around America in Georgia, centrally located Baldwin County, primarily a rural county.

[00:17:57] But it has a significant black population and two colleges.

[00:18:01] It's far away from the state's major metro areas.

[00:18:04] And what they're looking for here is whether or not the Harris campaign did or did not successfully turn out young and black voters in Georgia.

[00:18:16] OK, so that's why they're looking at Baldwin County is it's just, again, like Cabarrus County.

[00:18:21] It's going to be indicative of a pattern that is spread around the state.

[00:18:26] By the way, let me just bounce back to North Carolina real quick.

[00:18:29] One other point here.

[00:18:30] Democrats are going to need to get about a quarter of a million missing early voters.

[00:18:36] They didn't show up in early vote.

[00:18:39] So those quarter million voters are missing, quote unquote.

[00:18:43] And so Democrats need to get those voters out to the polls today.

[00:18:50] Something that they were obviously unable to do over a two week period.

[00:18:54] See, this is why people look at these early voting numbers as problematic for the Democrats,

[00:18:59] because now you've got to try to get these people that you could not get earlier.

[00:19:03] You've got to get them out in one day.

[00:19:06] And now you're competing with resources to get those voters to the polls.

[00:19:12] All right, back to Georgia.

[00:19:14] We've got another county, Fayette County, Georgia, located in the suburbs of Atlanta.

[00:19:20] It's been carried by Republicans, but has been trending more and more Democrat as college educated suburbanites flee the GOP.

[00:19:29] Harris needs to come close to winning here as she's likely to lose votes elsewhere in the state.

[00:19:35] So that's another kind of Cabarrus County bellwether to look for.

[00:19:37] You've also got Muskegon County in Michigan, Saginaw County, Michigan, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,

[00:19:48] Northampton County, Pennsylvania, Sauk County.

[00:19:51] That's up in Wisconsin.

[00:19:53] Along with Ozaukee County, Wisconsin.

[00:20:00] And then one in Arizona, we all know it, Maricopa County and Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County, Nevada.

[00:20:12] So those are your 13 counties to watch.

[00:20:14] I'll be watching them as well.

[00:20:15] One of the seven swings of the apocalypse, Pennsylvania has had already some problems because, of course, it has.

[00:20:26] The RNC chairman, Michael Watley, posted this morning at about 740 a.m.

[00:20:33] Early this morning, we learned that Republican poll watchers in Philadelphia, York, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Lehigh, Cambria, Wyoming, and Lackawanna counties were being turned away.

[00:20:47] These are all Pennsylvania counties.

[00:20:49] We deployed our roving attorneys, engaged with local officials, and can now report that all Republican poll watchers have been let into the building.

[00:20:58] We will keep fighting, keep winning, and keep sharing updates.

[00:21:02] One of the counties I listed there, Cambria County, had to have its polling hours extended today.

[00:21:12] The original polling hours, so this was due to problems with ballot scanning machines.

[00:21:20] So they could not count ballots.

[00:21:23] The original polling hours were then extended.

[00:21:27] So rather than closing at 8 p.m. tonight, the polling places in Cambria County will be extended till 10 p.m.

[00:21:38] The extension was granted after a petition was filed with the court.

[00:21:45] The county board of elections requested the extension, and this is pretty common if there is any kind of a problem at the polling site.

[00:21:53] At an individual location, the boards will allow for additional time.

[00:21:59] So if you end up with a problem and they can't count ballots for 15 minutes or so, they'll add 15 minutes on the back end.

[00:22:07] So in this case, that's a pretty large period of time, but the polling station is now going to be open for an extra two hours.

[00:22:17] Let's go to the phones here and talk with Stan.

[00:22:19] Hello, Stan.

[00:22:20] Welcome to the program.

[00:22:21] Hi, Pete.

[00:22:22] I voted, and there was an issue on – I'm in York County.

[00:22:26] Yeah.

[00:22:27] I don't know.

[00:22:28] I think Brett lives in York County.

[00:22:30] But do you live in Charlotte or North Carolina or South Carolina?

[00:22:34] I live in North Carolina.

[00:22:35] You do?

[00:22:36] Okay.

[00:22:36] Well, it wouldn't affect you anyway.

[00:22:37] So I voted.

[00:22:38] But here's what I wanted to tell you.

[00:22:39] There was an issue on the ballot to where they were wanting to know if you would agree to raise the sales tax in York County for 1 percent.

[00:22:49] For not more than seven years, and they want to raise money for specified projects to build roads and widen roads and things like that and resurface them.

[00:22:57] And the county, for a total cost of $406,000,000, $650,000.

[00:23:09] Now, the reason I voted no is because $410,000,000, $650,000 is what they wanted.

[00:23:16] Now, the reason I voted no is, first of all, they are already getting enough money from me if they're collecting $0.24 – no, $0.29 now of gas taxes in South Carolina for every gallon of gas bought in the state.

[00:23:31] They're getting enough money already to complete these projects.

[00:23:34] And so this is – what they're trying to do is get me to sacrifice on my budget so they don't have to.

[00:23:42] And you should know that when you say not more than seven years on this tax, I'll guarantee you once the sales tax goes to 7 percent, they're not going to bring it down seven years from now.

[00:23:53] They're going to find something else to get to keep the tax up at 7 percent.

[00:23:57] Well, if I recall correctly, I was actually a reporter down there at the time when they did the Pennies for Progress sales tax referendum.

[00:24:03] They passed it. It was a one-cent sales tax like you're describing, and one of the keys was that it had a sunset provision in it.

[00:24:11] And if it's like that, if it's a renewal of that Pennies for Progress plan, then it does sunset, which is probably why you're being asked to vote on it again.

[00:24:20] I mean, the Pennies for Progress – I mean, that was like 1998, if I remember correctly.

[00:24:24] So, yeah, I don't know. If the sales tax has a sunset clause in it and it's approved by voters, then I think you're pretty safe to know that it's going to sunset.

[00:24:35] All right. Thanks for the call, Stan. I appreciate it.

[00:24:38] All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

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