War And A Speakerless House 01:04:35

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Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk.

The Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel dominated American politics over the weekend, with candidates and politicians sharing their reactions to the violence and now the ongoing war. And I'll just say the images are very hard to watch and my heart goes out to everyone affected.

We had a packed show already planned for you today, and we still do. But we're going to take some time to talk about how the attacks and war are reshaping politics in Washington and on the campaign trail. And also, of course, how this intersects with a currently speakerless House of Representatives.

So far, the speaker's race appears to be between Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise and Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, though some moderates have made the push to consider re-electing Kevin McCarthy in light of the war in the Middle East.

There are also some notable developments here at home that we're going to get to. Last week, Biden appeared to pivot on border security with the administration, waiving 26 federal laws to make way for 20 miles of border wall in South Texas. Democratic mayors of big cities have been increasingly critical of the White House over the migrant crisis. And Americans' opinions of Biden and Democrats' approach to immigration are at historic risk.

Also, reports suggest that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to announce an independent bid for the White House today, Monday, October 9th. So how would that impact the two-way vote between Democrats and Republicans next November? We'll try to answer that. And then lastly, FiveThirtyEight is launching its state-level averages of the Republican primary today.

Now you can see how the candidates are performing state by state in the early states. So we'll let you know who looks strongest other than Trump in those early states. Lots to talk about, as I said. So let's get to it here with me to discuss our senior elections analyst, Jeffrey Skelly. Hey, Jeff.

Hey, Galen. Also with us is politics reporter Leah Escarin. Leah, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thanks for having me. So over the weekend, lawmakers and candidates put out statements on the attacks on Israel and the country's response in Gaza.

Just from a starting point, how much daylight is there either within the parties or between the two parties on this issue? Because we've heard an awful lot. And I think there are some at least clear differences at this point, Jeff. You know, I would say that basically all Republicans and then most Democrats are

have expressed support for Israel. Obviously, President Biden came out and said, we support Israel, we condemn these attacks. And it looks like the Biden administration is getting ready to try to send more military assistance. So from that perspective, I don't know if there's a ton of daylight, but there are clearly some

some differences within the Democratic Party, I would say in particular. You have, particularly amongst sort of the progressive left, greater support for Palestinians in general. And that has, I think, sort of translated in this particular moment into less overt criticism of Hamas, even while maybe condemning the situation in its entirety. And this is, you know, Republicans have attacked Democrats generally, probably pointing,

to these members of Congress like Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib for – or Cori Bush who are sort of members of the squad as it's often called for basically supporting Palestine in the – even while Israel has been attacked. So that's sort of how – like if you're talking about divides or daylight, that's sort of where I see that situation. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that was probably the most obvious cleavage. You also think about on the Republican side, there are isolationists who have been increasingly vocal over the past decade. Obviously, Trump is in part one of those people. Mike Pence was on the shows over the weekend saying that, you know, it's the isolationists in the Republican Party that are allowing things like this to happen. So you think about maybe how that part of the party would be responding. Leah,

Do you see it similarly to how Jeff described it? Are you seeing any cleavages on the right? Where there are differences is less on the response to the attack itself. I think Jeff is right that the general sentiment coming out of Congress from Democrats and Republicans has been to condemn Hamas literally.

Let me just start off by reading actually one of the tweets from Ilhan Omar, who's been a critic of the Israeli government and of Netanyahu. She said on X, formerly known as Twitter or Twitter, formerly known as X, whatever it is, I condemn the horrific attacks we are seeing unfold today in Israel against children, women, the elderly and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas.

Such senseless violence will only repeat the back and forth cycle we've seen. And she goes on. And I think where she goes from there is more of a conversation about the kind of cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine. That circle of violence rhetoric is much quieter on the Republican side, where it's more a direct kind of condemnation of Hamas and less a commentary on Israel.

the situation or the long simmering, sometimes not simmering tension between Palestinians and Israelis. On the Republican side, I think what we're beginning to see is how, you know, the first step for all Republicans is, you know, condemning Hamas and saying that they support Israel. That's been pretty unilateral. The question is then who

Where do they take this politically? And we have seen some Republicans begin to pin the blame on Biden for his policies with Iran. We've seen, I think it was Nikki Haley this weekend on one of the Sunday shows,

said that, you know, this is a wake up call for our own security and how we need to secure the southern border. So the divide among Republicans right now is less on what happens and more on trying to kind of hone a political message on who's to blame within the United States.

Yeah, and I think that's interesting because it's not like we've heard some of the opponents of aid to Ukraine come out and say they would also oppose aid – further aid to Israel, right? It's much more – either they're staying quiet or they're saying we need to help Israel. So it's an interesting sort of juxtaposition there.

uh views toward ukraine and views toward israel when it comes to american aid yeah i think we're gonna see as the days and weeks progress the extent to which there is a divide on the democratic side but so far it seems like ukraine pretty much unites democrats and has increasingly divided republicans this pretty much unites republicans and we're about to find out how much

it divides Democrats. I mean, I'll say what we heard largely from members of the so-called squad over the weekend was calls for de-escalation. And here's an example of a representative from Massachusetts, Democrat Jake Auchincloss, responding to that saying, this isn't a both sides issue. Calls for de-escalation are premature. The United States did not de-escalate after Pearl Harbor. Israel requires the military latitude to reestablish deterrence and to root out the nodes of terrorism in

in Gaza. That's like a direct response to folks like Ilhan Omar, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, who called for de-escalation. I think it's also interesting for our purposes to talk about whether these cleavages or the extent that they exist are reflected in public opinion. Like, do we see that amongst Republicans,

pretty much unilaterally, there's a view of supporting Israel and aid to Israel. Do we see amongst Democrats that there is a divide? And if there is a divide, how divided are Democrats?

So I didn't specifically look at questions of aid, but at least in terms of attitudes towards Israel, Palestine, the Israeli people, and the Palestinian people. You do see Republicans very positive toward Israel, have highly favorable views of Israel, and also highly favorable views of the Israeli people.

Democrats have much more mixed feelings, even negative feelings towards Israel and the Israeli government. But they do have a favorable view of the Israeli people. I'm basing a lot of this off of 2022 polling from Pew Research Center.

regarding these questions. Democrats also have sort of similarly favorable views of the Palestinian people, which is definitely a contrast with Republicans who are more negative in their attitudes. So like...

In terms of the response and sort of the sort of very strong response that you see from Republicans, stern response, however you want to – what adjective you want to use here, makes perfect sense. It's very much in line with the attitudes of the Republican base, whereas the fact that you do see some Democrats maybe, I don't know, modulating their –

response. They're critical of Hamas, but that doesn't change the fact that they have issues with the Israeli government. And so they're trying to sort of balance these things. I think you also maybe see that to some extent. And it is true that more liberal or progressive Democrats are more likely to have more negative attitudes toward Israel.

And so the fact that you might see the most left-wing members of the Democratic caucus sort of the least critical or the least sort of – their responses were more mixed in terms of how they were dealing with what just happened. And maybe that makes perfect sense based on where public opinion is. And I do want to – I mean this is such –

a tricky issue. So I do want to be careful, you know, the way that we're characterizing the way liberals versus progressives view Israel, just because, you know, the government in Israel, it's, it's, it's a fraught question because, you know, the government in Israel or the prime minister has allied himself with conservatives in Washington. You know, he has been specifically invited by Republicans in Congress to speak in the United States. Um, and, uh,

Netanyahu was an ally of Trump. In that sense, it makes sense that, you know, conservatives would have stronger support for the Israeli government, which is a more conservative government than Democrats. That said, that's not really all we're talking about here, is it? It's not just about the government. It's about decades of

and the right to exist and a whole bunch of other things. So it's really hard to characterize, I think, kind of what support or opposition looks like just because we're talking about so many different stakeholders here. Leah, are you saying that this issue can't be simplified just down to how it's going to affect the House speaker race and the

other domestic American concerns. Yeah, there was a lot of Twitter activity over the weekend, or sorry, whatever we're calling it now. Activity over the weekend where I was just like, guys... People were cheating. People were cheating over the weekend. Guys, this is...

It's bad.

I should say this podcast doesn't pretend to have the kind of scope that frequently covers these kinds of issues. So, you know, it is tricky to talk about when big global events happen like Brexit or the war in Ukraine. You know, we do talk about them and we talk about them from the perspective that we can, which is oftentimes public opinion and the American political response.

But that is by no means where these questions that surround world events like the ones we talk about begin or end. So important to say that for sure. But I think, Leah, you did make an important point, which is that Americans oftentimes take cues on foreign affairs from political leaders, you know, quote unquote, the political elite. And so if...

for example, Trump and Republicans have a close relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu, that may very well influence, we should expect it to influence the views of Republicans who may not

almost certainly do not think a lot about the questions of Israeli-Palestinian politics on a normal basis, and neither do Democrats. And so people are, in general, taking cues from elites. I would say this. Sometimes public opinion works in the reverse. And I think when we talk about immigration, we might see politicians reacting to public opinion on the ground. This may be more of a situation of...

voters reacting to the opinions of the elites. Do you think that's fair to say?

Yeah, I think it's what's tricky is we don't have the data yet from this. This is all just happening. So what we're looking at, like Jeff said, is a lot of data from 2022. So what we're looking at then is probably, you know, when when a pollster calls you and asks you in 2022, what do you think of Israel? What are voters first thinking of? Are they thinking of Netanyahu? Are they thinking of the Israel-Palestine conflict? Are they thinking of something else?

So, you know, we can't really go back in time and put ourselves in that place. But what we can do is look at new data that comes out in the next few days and see, you know, just whatever people's views were on Israel and Netanyahu in the last two to four to six years. What do they think about what's happening right now? Because it does seem, at least just from my perspective,

you know, initially, it does seem like a lot of the response that I've seen from Democrats has been more kind of black and white about the criticism of Hamas than I was expecting it to be. That said, we're just a few days out. A lot of things can change, but that's where we are. Yeah. And we'll keep tracking public opinion as this continues. I mean, as we're recording this on Monday, you know, full scale war is breaking out essentially. So the situation is ever changing.

Let's, as you suggested, Jeff, ask how this is going to shape congressional politics because the House is speakerless. And so it would seem that that may impact the country's ability to send military aid to Israel. Although, please answer that because I don't know exactly how this works. Do you, Jeff? Yeah. So we're very much in uncharted waters here in terms of having –

a speaker pro temp who is an acting speaker pro temp, um, in Patrick McHenry. Uh, so far it seems like the, the way the rules are being interpreted in the house is sort of the narrowest version of that in terms of what McHenry can do, um, what sort of, uh, leadership he can take in terms of putting things on the floor. Um,

That – if we didn't get a speaker on Wednesday when they start – when they're going to start voting on the next speaker, if something happened and that process took a while and something needed to happen in terms of passing legislation that would provide aid to Israel or something related to that …

I think that you might see the sort of view of how to handle this situation in terms of the leadership could change because, again, all the precedents for how to handle this situation where a speaker has been pushed out are being set now because this has never happened before. So from that perspective, I think there's – it's sort of – it's still open to interpretation. Yeah.

So for now, they're going to say, hey, we got to do the speaker thing first, then we can deal with this. If the speaker thing is thrown into chaos and the House is without a speaker for an extended period of time, they might say, screw it. This is something we have to address and we're creating the precedent as we go.

You know, I know that this can sometimes feel like we're reading the political version of, you know, Us Weekly or TMZ. But Politico over the weekend suggested that Republican moderates were saying that this is evidence that we need to reelect McCarthy, bring him back as speaker.

Does that seem at all plausible based on the reporting that you all are doing on whip counts and who's supporting Jim Jordan versus Steve Scalise, etc.? I know. I don't think we can rule it out, but I think you would have to see a real deadlock.

between the pro-Scalise and pro-Jordan votes in the House. Now, I will say that at the moment, like two-thirds of House Republicans have not publicly endorsed a candidate. And so with that in mind, like I know there are a lot of people who are either on the fence or not publicly expressing their support. And so perhaps there is room for that possibility. At the same time though,

Are the eight Republicans who voted to kick McCarthy out going to be OK with him coming back? Probably not, and that creates sort of a fundamental challenge to getting him elected. I mean if it's like eight up to 20 who were voting against him the first time around in the January speakership saga, there were 20 Republicans who at some point voted against him.

in that process. So I guess it's just, it's challenging, but I don't want to rule it out entirely because there are a lot of people who have not said who they'll support. And obviously with this situation as an added variable, perhaps there could be movement on that front. I don't think that the speaker is necessarily going to be Scalise or Jordan, but it's just that if there's going to be a kind of compromise candidate, I would imagine it would probably be Patrick McHenry.

not McCarthy, just because I can't imagine the Republicans who voted for ousting McCarthy, you know, deciding like,

I just can't imagine them admitting that they may have made a mistake. I just can't imagine that. And they don't want to exist in a caucus where they've voted to oust McCarthy and have created a lot of bad blood there and then also have to be led by him. Like, that's asking for their own marginalization. I mean, unless they sort of make a deal with the devil and say,

I'll vote for you again, McCarthy, but this is what I want. And McCarthy actually gives it to them. And you would have to think that's not going to happen. Did he already do that once? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Right, exactly.

And so to that point, what does differentiate Jordan Scalise and a potential, you know, compromise candidate? Is it the sort of centrist to conservative ideological spectrum? Is it just personal relationships? How can we describe the decision that the party is trying to make?

I mean, I think a lot of those factors are going to play into it. At the moment, it's about noon on Monday, October 9th, as we're recording this, because this count's going to change. But at the moment, Jordan has 45 endorsers, and then Scalise has 31, and then there are four who have said that they'd like to see McCarthy back, and then one, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has said she would support Trump. I think the important takeaway, though, here early is that

Jordan does have more support among those who have publicly endorsed, but a ton of people haven't endorsed yet. But how it's breaking down so far at least is that the Republicans who we would sort of describe as more anti-establishment, sort of insurgent, a lot of the House Freedom Caucus has backed Jordan. So in that way, Jordan perhaps who is very much a part of that same group has –

Maybe picked off a lot of the low hanging fruit. And now it's sort of a question of can he grab hold of support among members who might not we might not automatically associate with him. So maybe some of the more center right Republicans who are in.

swing seats in places like New York, for example, or California. As of yet, that hasn't really happened yet, but he did get Nicole Maliatakis of New York did endorse Jordan, for instance. That's Staten Island. Yes. So it may be heading in that direction, potentially. Whereas Scalise's support is among more people who might be sort of viewed as closer to the party leadership, more establishment support.

somewhat more moderate within the overall GOP caucus. And there are maybe a lot more members in that realm who haven't endorsed yet. So maybe Scalise has like a higher potential ceiling.

But at the same time, someone's got to get to 217 votes or slightly less than that if a few people vote present, as we saw back in January when McCarthy got elected. A few Republicans voted present to lower the majority line to get elected speaker. But the point is that they're both a very long way from that. Right. Ultimately, there's no one's going to be able to win with conservatives or the center right.

period. You're going to have to win both and almost in a unanimous fashion. Yeah, because I mean, again, a lot of this is – a lot of all the things that are happening right now come down significantly to the fact that Republicans have a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives. They have 221 members. There are a couple of vacancies, one in a safe red seat. But right now, 221 Republicans in a 433-member House. And so that is –

Not a lot to work with. So from that perspective, it's like, you know, if you need 217 of 221 to win, you can't have many people holding out. Even if a few do end up voting present, you need slightly less than 217. You got to end up with close to that number. Where I'm getting caught up on the Jordan as speaker question. I mean, you have 18 voters.

in districts that Biden carried in 2020, or that he would have carried in 2020.

So under the 2022 lines, there are basically 18 Republicans who are running in Biden territory. And voting for Jim Jordan for speaker seems like a really hard way to win a district that Biden won by. I mean, in some cases, we're talking about double digits. You know, like there are some Republicans running for reelection and in districts that Biden would have carried by 15 or by 15 points.

13 points. It's,

That ad writes itself, right? Like find one kind of bombastic statement from Jim Jordan, throw like Mark Molinaro's picture on it and be like, he voted for Jim Jordan and that's the ad. And that could be not only like the end of Republicans tenure in a particular congressional seat, but the end of their majority. So I think it's going to be really hard for them to get enough Republicans to actually vote.

get on board with him unless like Jordan has some kind of extreme makeover situation happen ideologically, or at least in terms of how he presents himself. At the moment, it looks like George Santos is the only, the only one. So you're saying George Santos is currently the only Republican in a Biden district that has thrown their support behind Jim Jordan. All right. Well, we will see.

what happens there. Like I mentioned, we got a lot to cover. So we're going to motor and we're going to move on to another sensitive issue in American politics, which is immigration.

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It looks like President Biden may be making a reluctant about-face on the issue of immigration. Last week, his administration waived federal laws to make way for 20 miles of wall at the border in South Texas. Biden, however, also said that he was forced to build the wall because, quote, "'I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect the money. They didn't, they wouldn't, and in the meantime, there's nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what is appropriated. I can't stop that.'"

The administration also announced last week that they would begin deporting Venezuelan migrants who have entered the country illegally, which it had previously declined to do. So some mixed messages there from the Biden administration. Some context. In September, U.S. Border Patrol made more than 200,000 apprehensions at the border, a monthly record for the year. Total apprehensions for the fiscal year, which ended September 30th, surpassed 2 million for only the second time in U.S. history. The first time was 2022.

Republicans have been critical of Biden's approach to the border since day one, but Democrats have increasingly joined in the criticism. Last week, Democratic Governor of Illinois J.B. Pritzker sent a letter to the White House saying a, quote, lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois. Also last week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams traveled to Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia, delivering the message that, quote, there is no more room in New York.

Recent polling shows that Americans trust in Democrats to handle the issue of immigration is at an all-time low. So a lot going on there. And it seems like this issue that had been so central to Trump and his campaign and Democratic backlash to Trump is getting sort of remade before our eyes in some ways because of the migrant crisis.

So I think maybe the first question to ask here, because it's pretty unclear from just looking at public statements and actions, what is Biden's position here? I think Biden's position is he's an incumbent president who's worried about immigration and is hoping to win reelection. And because he's a Democrat...

He can – and as an incumbent and has basically no opposition for the nomination, he can tack right here. Maybe if he's not – he may not be necessarily doing it in a smooth way, saying things like I'm not even sure this is going to work or whatever he said. But if he's worried about the issue –

and feels like this could help stem immigration as an issue months from now when we get closer to the election, or at least lower the temperature on the issue, that could benefit him politically. So that's sort of how I look, is that it's a Democrat tacking right because he's in a position where he can tack right, and because it is clearly a worry. I mean, if you see that polling from NBC News saying that people trust Republicans more than ever on this issue,

I think there's actual cause for concern, maybe not necessarily with the Democratic base because that's not Biden's concern. It's the small number of independent voters who might be upset about this potentially or slightly Republican-leaning voters who supported Biden over Trump in 2020 and that he would like to keep in the fold.

There's the policy, there's addressing the actual issue, and then there's the politics of it, right? So from a policy perspective, I don't think anyone thinks that what's happening right now is a good thing or a sustainable thing. And so from a policy perspective, you'd want to address it. From a political perspective, from an electoral perspective...

You would also want to convince people that you are addressing it, that you're doing something. And so I kind of understand the action. What I don't understand is Biden's messaging around it being like, I was forced to do this. I didn't want to do it. And I don't think it will work. It does sound like somebody who is trying to sort of have both things in the sense of do something that maybe will lower the salience of immigration.

at least border security, while also maybe not infuriating the Democratic base at the same time. I think it's like a balancing act, and maybe he's doing a poor job of balancing it, but that would be sort of my interpretation of the way he's behaved. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of reading it as almost like, yeah, I just have to do this thing. Don't worry about it, everyone. Go about your day. Go about your business. Yeah.

Nothing's happening here. Partially because it's just like, it's not a good issue for Democrats to run on. It's just like, if you look at, I mean, I feel like people sometimes forget about the 2018 midterms, like in that last two weeks. Somehow this is just like, we've all collectively forgotten about this as a country, but there was like a good two weeks to a month where like Donald Trump was like screaming about like a migrant caravan the last two weeks of the midterms and the urgency completely

completely just diminished after election day. Like Republicans want to run on this issue. Like you said, Galen, they poll significantly better than Democrats on it and at an all time high on it. So basically what Democrats want to do is just make it an issue that's not the top issue. Like how can you address it enough where it's kind of like,

not the, it's not the number one issue. It's not like the front burner, but you know, like instead it's, it's managed to an extent where instead you can focus on things like the economy and abortion and Ukraine and, you know, Israel now. I mean, everything about this is about months from now. It's not about right now. That's the thing. So like, where are things in August and September of 2024 is what this matters. Yeah.

Right. And again, you're talking about the electoral politics there. I'm sure like a policy response also matters. For what it's worth, I'll say, you know, when I was in California for the Republican debate, Gavin Newsom showed up to the spin room and spent a lot of time talking to reporters. I asked him,

about border security. And he was like, oh, I support Biden's plan that his first week in office, he proposed. And then he goes, but it's not perfect. And I said, what's wrong with it? He was like, oh, it's not what's wrong with it, but where you can add to it. And he said, overhauling the asylum system, which is being taken advantage of.

basically. So from a policy perspective, Democrats also think that they're in Newsom, I think is probably a prime example of ambitious Democrat who wants to position himself electorally advantageously within the party. There's Democrats saying, you know, things should be done, right? And Biden is also seems to, through his actions, not words saying,

something needs to be done. Voters, you know, we mentioned the polling, here's actual numbers. Republicans have an 18-point advantage on immigration. So 45% of registered voters picked the Republican Party as better on the issue of immigration. 27% picked Democrats. Largest gap ever. You know, in recent ABC News polling, Biden's approval rating on handling the issue of immigration was 40 points underwater. And for the record...

On, you know, three weeks ago on the podcast, I was like, I was talking to Lynn Bavrick and I said, oh, you know, almost jokingly, like to take this issue off the table to disempower it. Is Biden going to build a wall?

And it turns out that he is. But why not get the electoral points for it by saying, hey, look, I'm doing something and I'm going to try to make this work? Is it just because it's too much Trump's issue and you can't you cannot say as a Democrat that you're building a wall? Isn't this kind of a similar approach to what we saw with Title 42? I'm trying to remember earlier this spring.

you know, Biden's approach to the end of the emergency. It was a public health declaration that restricted immigration. And

It was, again, one of those things where it's kind of hard to pin down. There's a lot of like, well, the courts are making us do this. And then like John Roberts comes in and says we have to do that. Like it's hard to kind of nail down kind of where Democrats stand on immigration, I think, in a lot of different places. And I don't think this is new. I think that what you're pointing out, Galen, is...

I think it's really smart. I think it's something that I hadn't really thought about as like a strategy because I don't know if it is a strategy, but I do think it's hard for Democrats to lay out like a specific strategy

theory for the case on immigration because there will always be more that can be done, right? Like Republicans will always be able to win this argument because whatever Democrats do will never be enough. There will always be an issue with, I think, immigration and with people, more people wanting to come into this country than what the immigration system can handle.

So I don't I don't know. It just seems like a I don't know if it's a political strategy. Well, but to be clear, this gap on immigration wasn't always there. I mean, when you look at the economy or crime, Republicans very often have an advantage that is durable throughout different administrations. Democrats led Republicans on the question of handling immigration throughout the Trump years for part of the Obama years, for all of the Bush years.

And so this does seem like an issue where it seems like in some ways the response to Trump has put Democrats in a corner because of, of course, how...

course Donald Trump made the issue, you know, obviously the first day on the campaign trail, basically talking about rapists and murderers coming from Mexico. And, you know, the way that he talked about the issue didn't jibe with a lot of Americans and especially not Democrats. And so Democrats position was to oppose everything that basically Trump said on the issue of immigration. And now they've painted themselves into a corner where they're not really able to embrace the sort of interventions that past Democratic presidents

You know, the border wall started being built under Clinton and was continued to be built under Obama. And now there's kind of a crisis and it's hard for them to react while maintaining some sort of continuity with what they said during Trump's years in office. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great way of sort of summing up their situation. I just don't know what Biden...

Again, it's sort of, I mean, to Leo's point, it's like you just kind of do something, hope it works to some extent, lowers the temperature on the issue. But it doesn't necessarily mean he's going to come off as like,

consistent or because he's not. So like, I just I think, to your point, Democrats are just sort of between a rock and a hard place on this issue. If public opinion has shifted the way it has, it's left them with not a ton of room for maneuver, at least in terms of how they publicly present their position on how to handle immigration and border security. So I guess my last question on this topic is,

According to polling, it doesn't look like this issue is super important to Democrats, but it's very important to Republicans and put independence somewhere in between that. But given that, how concerned does Biden have to be about his left flank on this? Like, so, you know, for more Trump context, we saw time and time again, Trump took Republican orthodoxy and threw it out the window in order to,

make his pitch to the American public, whether it be free trade or unions or Social Security or Medicare. And then, of course, during the COVID crisis, signed into law, you know, with Democrats help some of the most generous social safety net programs in American history.

Are there real incentives for Biden to not just make a total pivot on this? Like what would happen if he did? OK, so I think the the electoral consequences are going to be most severe for Democrats in New York right now. Right. Like that is kind of like the center of it.

the new conversation on immigration crisis. And it's where you have a handful of Republicans running for reelection in districts that Biden carried. Republicans won a handful of races in 2022 in the House in New York that, you know, they really have no business having with Biden's margins there, and they still do. So I think how...

Democrats communicate about immigration is going to have the biggest effect in those particular areas, but it's also not a completely even effect, even for the Republican Party. So when Republicans go on offense on immigration, it's meant to be a tool to increase turnout. Like you said, Republicans care in polling a lot more about this issue than Democrats do.

So in areas where maybe there's, you know, in 2022, like with Trump put on the ballot, you know, maybe it was a way to get people excited without having Trump on the ballot. But we've also seen in other elections that happened not so long ago, I'm thinking like 2018, 2019, that there's

the rhetoric around immigration can go too far for some independent and Republican voters, and it can cost Republican seats. So basically what I'm saying is that for both parties, and I think Democrats especially, it's kind of a calculated risk that you take depending on what your priority is. Is your priority on

keeping or flipping these New York seats? Because if so, that's one message. Or is it on preventing Republicans from turning this into a turnout mechanism in 2024? Yeah. I mean, I wonder though if voters see it, if it ends up being that segmented, like it does this become a thing where voters are like, Oh,

it doesn't seem like the situation is under control at the border. Violent crime still is up in American cities. Gas prices are rising. Like, oh, things are just out of control. The Biden administration isn't doing a good job of keeping these sort of like fundamental things in order.

And so I wonder if it just gets at a broader sentiment about the Biden administration, which is quite negative at the moment. This was also an issue in 2022, right? Like not to the same extent. I don't think we saw the I don't know if we saw the extent of the effects of Southern sanctions.

States sending migrants to Northern states. I don't think we had seen the effects of that before the 2022 midterms, but I mean, in 2022, I think there was a general sense that Biden, you know, I mean, Biden's approval rating was not strong on election day in 2022. And so short answer, I don't know. And that's the big question. Like, do you,

New York voters, do they just show up and vote for Biden because of the presidential year and they're going to vote for Biden? And, you know, that's, they're Democrats. So that's the end of it. Or does this open the door for Republicans? And I think,

What I'm leaning toward right now is that it could open the door for some Republicans. I don't know how many, and I don't know how much. All right. Well, I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear about this issue. Let's move on and talk about something that could jumble all of this, or maybe not, which is RFK Jr.'s expected independent bid for president. We're going to say goodbye to Jeffrey. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jeff. Thanks for having me.

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All right, folks, I just got the official notification on my phone that RFK Jr. is running for president as an independent.

ending, as The New York Times says, his Democratic bid and altering the race's dynamic. So that's a great jumping off point, in fact, which is, is this altering the race's dynamics? And so for today, I don't think you could call this a good use of polling or bad use of polling so much as a good use of vibes or bad use of vibes. So now that RFK Jr. is running as an independent in the presidential race,

I think there are a lot of questions about how he could impact that. And there's been a sense, particularly amongst supporters of Joe Biden, that any third party or independent candidate would likely take votes away from Biden. So in a quote to Politico, Matt Bennett, the co-founder of the centrist group Third Way, said, quote, Biden wins a head to head with Trump. For what it's worth, I think that is a bad use of polling as far as the polling goes today.

But continuing the quote, so as long as we can hand him that, he can win. But third party candidates will make it very hard. All right. So for the next portion of the podcast, I would like to welcome senior elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich. Welcome to the podcast, Nathaniel. Hey, Galen. Thanks for having me.

So whether or not any third party bid would be a spoiler for Biden is one question. And we don't have to get into it. But, you know, according to current polling averages, Trump is actually leading in head to head 2024 polling. So I think that maybe Matt Bennett's use of polling is bad there. But we're here to talk about the use of vibes.

Is it the case that an independent bid by RFK Jr. is a threat to Biden? Is it based on evidence, that take, or is it just vibes?

It is, I think, a valid hypothesis. I don't think the evidence is quite there yet. So obviously to back up, RFK Jr. is the, you know, descendant of the Kennedy family, famous Democratic... Wait, what, Nathaniel? Whoa, whoa, I know. Crazy, huh? Did you know that these two Kennedys are related? Thank you, thank you. But anyways, basically...

Obviously, the Kennedys are a big Democratic clan. There is a lot of love for them within the Democratic Party still. There are also kind of, you know, obviously he was running in the Democratic primary earlier. So I think it is not crazy to think that he could take away from Biden. That said, I think the evidence mostly tilts actually the other direction, although we have gotten some interesting counter arguments lately. I wrote an article for the website a few months ago at this point, weeks. What is time?

But basically, I found that RFK Jr.'s favorability ratings were strongly positive among Republicans and they were mixed to negative among Democrats.

So that would imply that obviously Republicans like him a lot more than Democrats do. And therefore, you would expect that Republicans might be more likely to vote for him in the general election than Democrats would be likely to vote for him. However, we have gotten a couple of polls recently testing both Biden versus Trump head to head and a three way matchup, including Kennedy. And both of those polls did find that Kennedy took a little bit more support away from Biden than from Trump.

So, you know, I think we should entertain this hypothesis. So specifically, Echelon Insights found that it went from, I believe, Trump plus three to Trump plus four after Kennedy was included. And then Ipsos and Reuters found a

an even race during the head-to-head, and then it was Trump plus two in the race with Kennedy included. And in both cases, he got 14% of the vote. Now, I think very importantly, this is a good example of how, I mean, we talked on this podcast about how early polls in general are not to be trusted, but this is particularly a case, I think, where you can't take early polls literally. So a tried and true pattern

that you see is that for third party candidates, their vote share in polls tends to start out high, and especially in a case like this where people know who Biden and Trump are and they don't like them. But the closer you get to Election Day, third party candidates, vote shares and polls goes down and down and down. And that's just because people look at the stakes of the election. They see that third party candidate tends not to have the chance to win. And they say, you know what? I don't want to throw away my vote. I'm going to vote for the lesser of two evils between the two major party candidates.

As that education happens, I also expect that you might see even more people become aware of RFK Jr.'s, some of his more conservative beliefs, like his anti-vax tendencies. That's a pattern that we've seen in the Democratic primary so far, where initially people were like, oh, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sounds great. But a lot of them hadn't heard a lot about him other than the fact that they knew his name was Kennedy. But over the course of the campaign, his favorable rating among Democrats did decline. And so if maybe you assume that a general election election

electorate, isn't paying as close attention to the Democratic primary, still hasn't maybe been plugged into RFK Jr.'s anti-vax and other kind of more... But Ukraine was also an issue there. Like, sort of, obviously Democrats are pretty united on aid to Ukraine.

RFK Jr. has questioned it, that aligns more with Republicans' position on the issue. Yeah. He also said at one point that he supported a 15-week abortion ban, which he has since backed away from. But he's said a number of things that I think would not sit well with Democrats and hasn't sit well with the Democratic primary electorate. And so assuming that RFK Jr. stays in the race through next November, which I think is also a question mark, I

you could see that things just start to shift. And maybe just because he is taking a little bit of the vote more away from Biden in these early polls now doesn't necessarily mean that'll be the case come November 2024. I think that was a pretty good summary of what's going on here. Leah, do you have anything to add? Because I'm ready to move on. No, let's go. Okay. Well, since you said my name, the only thing...

I everything that I think the way Nathaniel framed it as a hypothesis, more than an evidence based theory. I think that's absolutely right. If you look at like how how Biden is polling in head to head. So how he's polling against Trump versus his favorability rating or his job approval rating.

he's doing better in a head-to-head against Trump than you would expect him to be, right? Like his approval ratings are in like the high 30s, low 40s, and yet he's still managing, you know, maybe 45% to 50% in polling. So I think that the fear for Democrats is that Biden's support is largely unbiased.

a manifestation of opposition to Trump. And so how soft are those numbers and how easy would it be to take some of that Biden support and just kind of transpose it to another candidate? Yeah. And to that point, we will in the future talk about the possibility of other third party or independent candidacies. Cornel West, of course, is running for president. No Labels is running

putting together an effort to come up with some sort of so-called unity ticket. And we'll take a look at polling surrounding those potential candidacies in the future as well. Yeah. And I think I would also make a broader point that

There's been a lot of angst about third-party candidates this cycle and past cycles, Ralph Nader being a canonical example in 2000. And my buddy Ross Perot. Come on. Yeah, your personal friend? No, we did an audio documentary about whether or not Ross Perot was a spoiler in the 1992 election way back when. I guess this was...

2016. So before your time, but we came to the conclusion that Ross Perot, in fact, did not spoil the 2016, the 2016 election, God, the 1992 election.

Exactly. And that's kind of my point is that, you know, assuming that third party candidate support does get driven down to like the low single digits, which, of course, is where it almost always ends up come election day. The odds that it will swing the election are so, so low. Yeah.

Although Ralph Nader did spoil the election. Right, but that's literally because Florida was the decisive state and it was decided by like 500 votes. Like you would have to have... 537 votes. Exactly. Literally 538 votes would have made the difference. Ooh, ooh. Which is not where our name comes from, folks. Well, it's an incredible coincidence because that's also, of course, the number of electorates in the Electoral College. Anyway, basically what I'm trying to say is that

You would need to have an astronomically close general election for these things to matter. So it's generally not worth losing a lot of sleep over, regardless of which side you're on. But we could have a really close election. Just going to throw that out there. Pennsylvania. We could. You know, Arizona, Georgia. Just throwing that out there. That's all. Right. But like the 2000 election was just so historically close. Like there is like close the way that like 2020 was close. And then there is just like razor thin the way that...

was or I don't know the 2018 Florida governor's race was or Senate race but yeah and important to remember that even considering how close the 2000 election was everyone sort of you know behaved in good faith after the election was over and moved on imagine that just

just destroy our institutions. Oh, so quaint. We've looked at this. We've looked at this. Faith in institutions voted, whatever. Faith in the Supreme Court declined significantly after the 2000 election, but faith in the integrity of voting did not. And that's an important thing to remember. Let's wrap up with FiveThirtyEight's new polling averages, which are out today. We have new polling averages for approval of Congress, approval of the Supreme Court,

early state level Republican primary polling averages. We've got so much to offer folks. So please go to 538.com and check it out. For our purposes, we're going to focus in on those early state polls today because I think that's probably the most interesting. Oh,

You know, like TLDR, Americans don't think highly of Congress. They really don't think highly of Congress. They also don't think highly of the Supreme Court. That is a change. You know, the Supreme Court actually maintained there was a dip, as I just mentioned, after the 2000 election. But it maintained, you know, a clear majority of sort of trust as an institution for decades and decades and decades. And that has changed a bit.

So Nathaniel, take it away here. We do not have a national primary. We have a state by state primary. And if we look at those state level averages, what does it tell us? If anything different from the national numbers? Yeah. So we released five state primary polling averages today, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, California, and Florida. And they tell us that Donald Trump is still a strong favorite, you know, for all of the kind of consternation about how

you know, oh, you know, it isn't a national primary and, you know, you have to win in Iowa and New Hampshire. Like he's strong in those places too. He is between 45% and 50% of the vote in those, the three early states that I mentioned, Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. That said, it is a little interesting under the hood. So obviously Ron DeSantis has been talked about as kind of the main alternative to Trump for months now. And he is indeed second in the national polls, although obviously he's in a much diminished position from where he was before.

But in the Iowa polls, he is also in second place. But in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Nikki Haley is in second place. And that makes sense in South Carolina. It's Nikki Haley's home state. In New Hampshire, it's kind of interesting given that it's...

It's not her home state, and she has maybe had some good debate performances. New Hampshire also has more independent voters and has kind of this independent streak in primaries. So the fact that DeSantis isn't doing great there is maybe concerning for him, maybe not unexpected, though. On the other hand, he is still in second in Iowa. If he manages to do well in Iowa, that will presumably have an impact on the polls in New Hampshire. I don't know, but it's interesting. So I think there is...

More optimism for Nikki Haley and also to a lesser extent, somebody like Tim Scott, who also is obviously or maybe not obviously, but doing well in South Carolina and Iowa as well, or at least better than he is nationally. So basically, Nikki Haley's status as trying to become the main alternative to Trump is boosted when you look at these state polling averages. But that said, I think it's really important not to miss the forest for the trees. Like Trump still has dominant leads in these early states. Nobody is within reach.

really upset distance of Trump, like the closest that anybody is in these three states is Nikki Haley in South Carolina, and she's still 28 percentage points behind Trump. So like that could change. Obviously, there's still time.

He could build momentum in the first two states and score when South Carolina, but also South Carolina is our home state. So are people just going to dismiss that? I don't know. But basically, I think the main takeaway from these averages should be Donald Trump is strong everywhere. And the possibility that he sweeps all 50 states and however many territories there are is very much a libel.

one. And I'll just add the caveat here that of course, Nevada is also an early state, we don't have enough polls from Nevada to create an average. So pollsters get those polls of Nevada going. And we will also include you in these early state averages.

But Leah, I'm curious what you have to say about all of this, because you have been a strong voice for the argument that this primary is not wrapped up until Trump is at or above 50% in the early state polling.

Oh my gosh, I feel so honored that you have noticed that that is my position. Actually, I didn't realize I had said it that many times. I mean, maybe not all on this podcast, but we talk offline about politics as well. No, that's literally what I was about to talk about was the 50% mark. So there we go. No, I mean, it's true. And it's funny that I've become the voice of like, Trump doesn't have this wrapped up because I've been the voice of Trump has this wrapped up for like the last two years. Yeah.

So, but because like I never, I always thought DeSantis had a tougher time, would have a tougher time than many thought he would have.

But like you said, he's not quite at 50% in these averages, but he's pretty close. He's like 49. He's actually pretty much 50 in South Carolina, right? When you round up, he's getting there like 46 in New Hampshire, 49 in Iowa. Like, so yeah, he's, I mean, it would, I think at this point, like everybody would have to drop out except for Nikki Haley, like,

tomorrow. And I don't see that happening. So I think we're one step just right next to being able to say it's wrapped up, but not quite there yet. I mean, the thing is, obviously, like people like DeSantis and Ramaswamy, like if they dropped out, chances are Trump would gain a significant share, if not a majority of their supporters. So I think

Like, yeah, basically, like there's nothing magical about 50 percent of the threshold. I think like being at 48 percent is obviously still it's almost as good for Trump.

No, that's such a good point. It's not like the DeSantis vote and like the Ramaswamy vote is anti-Trump necessarily. I mean, like, I think that if they all were to drop out, it would become a two-way race and that becomes just slightly more like there are fewer other options. Like just it's easier for somebody else who's not named Trump to win. But yeah, I think it's pretty close to wrapped up.

We have actually some interesting data to add to this conversation that just came out last week from FairVote. They're proponents of rank choice voting, and so they applied a rank choice voting model to polls of the Republican primary and also specifically the early states. To the point about Nikki Haley, they found that if after 12 rounds of the rank choice voting process, Nikki Haley would come in second to Trump, but...

the numbers that they published were 62% support for Trump and 38% support for Haley. So not a particularly close race there. They found something maybe more notable in the early states, especially given that this somewhat contradicts the conclusion that our polling averages come to, although, of course, this is a different method of polling, that if you just look at the early states, DeSantis actually beats Trump

51% compared to 49%. I don't know how much voters have firm opinions of the non-Trump candidates yet. I don't know how much they know about them. I don't know how much voters know about what separates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. So I don't know. I don't know. It's just hard to do. It's almost like looking at hypotheticals at this point just because...

you know, they're so these other candidates are pulling so low that it's it's like almost an alternate reality where we would look at them in a head to head. Right. You have to like turn your head sideways and do a completely different method of voting for it to be a close race. Right. Right. Which like, again, like we're far away from we still have a few months, like obviously this week showed us like

Things change in the world. So, you know, always leave some room for that. But you'd have to check into a different reality. And that could happen. But there would have to be a different reality for Trump to not win the nomination. What were, Galen, what were the first round results in the early states, according to FairVote, like before all the ranked choice stuff? Yeah, really notable. And great question. 16%, only 16% for DeSantis. And

44% for Trump. Okay. And then that's certain that's, that is an interesting climb for him. I agree with Leah that it could be like people in the early States might be paying closer attention than nationally. And so might know more about DeSantis. They also might just might have a better, like kind of network there. Like Trump isn't holding a ton of events in the early States. He's doing his big rallies every, you know, once in a while, whereas the other candidates are doing more retail politicking and,

But I think in the end, at the end of the day, the thing is, right, is that that kind of ranked choice tabulation is least relevant in the early states, right? Because Iowa is a state where you are going to have a split field. And Trump, if he even if he does only get 40 percent in Iowa, that's enough to win. And, you know, then we're off to the races like the later states are the ones where you're probably going to be down to two candidates and the ranked choice tabulations are maybe relevant.

So I'm not sure that's that comforting if I'm DeSantis or Haley. Yeah. All right. Well, once again, I'll just encourage folks to head over to FiveThirtyEight.com and check out those polling averages. But I think that's it for today. This was a long podcast that covered a lot of ground. Does anyone have closing thoughts other than to say, see you next week? See you next week, Galen.

See you next week. All right. See you. Thank you, Leah and Nathaniel, for joining me today. Thanks, Galen. Thanks. My name is Galen Druk. Tony Chow is in the control room. You can get in touch by emailing us at podcasts at 538.com. You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments. If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or wherever you get your podcasts or tell someone about us. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.