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Between Burgum and the Kristi Noem ad on... I don't know if you guys saw it on Fox News. Oh, it's such a good ad. It is such a good ad. The Dakotas got... The winner of tonight's debate were the Dakotas. Were the Dakotas. That's it. I could see that. I mean...
Honestly, Leah, cheers to that. Wine in hand. I'm choosing the camera right now. To the Dakotas. To North Dakota. To the Dakotas. To the Dakotas winning the debate.
Hello and welcome to the FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druk. This is our post-debate late night episode of the podcast. And if you listen to last debate's version of this podcast, we're doing something similar. I once again do not have a script. I do also once again have wine in hand. It's rosé this time instead of pinot. The folks accompanying me on this podcast all
also have some booze. I will not be alone this time making a fool of myself like I was last time.
But let's get to the debate because that's why we're here, right? So it was the second Republican presidential primary debate. It was at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, a place that's hosted plenty of these debates in the past. Obviously, a very symbolic figure for the Republican Party, although we can talk about whether or not his legacy still applies to the Republican Party today. I have been in California since Saturday. I've been here for a long time. So I've been talking to a bunch of voters,
getting a sense of what's going on. It's an interesting place politically. I don't know if we're going to get to that tonight, but, uh, maybe on a future episode, more importantly, let's talk about the seven candidates that were on stage. There was no Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas. This time he was the one man out compared with the first Republican primary debate. So we had, let's see if I can list them all. We had, uh,
Rhonda Santos at the center of the stage. Then we had Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and Doug Burgum. I did it, guys. Okay, here with me to talk about those seven candidates are Jeff Skelly, Senior Elections Analyst. Welcome to the podcast. Great to have you. What are you drinking tonight?
I had a little bourbon, a little tipple. Just not much, but a little bit. Okay. All right. Love to hear. We decided on the last post-debate podcast that you were a whiskey track or liquor track kind of elections analyst. I mean, don't get me wrong. I like wine. I like beer. But this sort of thing to be relaxing with a glass of that is a nice way to let off some steam.
You sound a little too relaxed. Maybe we should get you a Red Bull as well. No. Come on, Jeff. Well, hey, you're on the West Coast. You're three hours behind us. You're like, ah, it's 945 there. It's like 1245 here on the East Coast. So...
In my defense, I am living on East Coast time. I was up and out of him at five o'clock this morning. So brutal. Point taken. Point taken. But play along with me here. So also here with us is politics reporter Leah Askaranam. Leah, thank you so much for joining us late night this evening. What are you drinking? I am. I'm now drinking a white wine, a vino verde, which
But mostly ate a box cookies tonight. This is this is now the end of my evening with the wine. All right. I love to hear it. So first things first, who won the second Republican presidential primary debate? Gun to your head using whatever pieces of data you can. There are very few at this moment in time. Leah, kick us off.
Just no. I just don't. Who's the winner? Like, can no be the answer? Is this my brain after the debate? It was a slog of a debate. I guess you could say Donald Trump was the winner because he wasn't there. And honestly, anybody who wasn't there was probably the winner. So Donald Trump and everybody else who skipped it might be the winner. Okay. All right.
Jeffrey? I think she's right in that Donald Trump was probably the winner. But I think of the people who were on the stage, probably Ron DeSantis, actually, at least in the sense that I felt like every time he gave an answer, he was generally pretty strong, even when he occasionally got some pushback. We saw actually a moment or two where he
he didn't really attack Trump, but he sort of made little comments about, you know, he was set up at one point by Chris Christie talking about the amount of money that was added to the national debt during Trump's administration. And DeSantis actually kind of jumped on that and actually attacked Trump for just a brief moment there. It was a brief, brief moment where he actually took a shot at Trump in the debate. And
Obviously, we don't expect DeSantis to really go particularly whole hog on attacking Trump. But it was just interesting because it did seem it was earlier and it seemed a bit more transparent than he had done previously. So I think of all told, I would probably pick DeSantis as the winner. He also talked more than he did in the last debate. So that was probably good, all things considered.
What are the numbers so we can set the scene for folks who maybe didn't watch the whole debate? How did everyone net out? Oh, in terms of talking time? It looks like, according to ABC, Ramaswamy spoke the most barely, but...
That isn't necessarily a shock because he was like that at the first debate, but he spoke close to 14 minutes, it looks like, and then DeSantis was at about 13 and a half, and then Tim Scott was a hair above 13, and then everyone else was behind that. Haley was at about 11 minutes. Christie was at like 10 and a half. Pence at 10.
And Burgum at eight. Burgum also got to that eight with some interruptions. So if he hadn't interrupted, he might have spoken for like four minutes.
So a couple things to that, which is, Leah, I think you intimated that this debate was a bit messy. I don't know if that's what you were saying in terms of a slog, but there were a lot of points at which people were talking over each other and interrupting. And I think probably one of the lessons that people learned from the first debate or just from the polling in general is that
You want to get airtime because that's the only way you can get attention, either from viewers or the media. And we know literally by the numbers that primaries are in some ways an attention game. If you can get the attention of the press, if you can get the attention of the voter, for the most part, your polls are going to rise accordingly.
Everyone took that message home after the first debate. And I think from this moment in time where the polls have been pretty stagnant and came to the second debate being like, this is my time to shine. I am going to step forward and take the mic and speak. And everyone tried to do it at the same time at various different points, almost to the point where it became difficult for the moderators to do their jobs at certain points. Yeah, except I feel like Mike Pence was a little quieter than I expected him to be. That was a little surprising to me.
But no, in general, I mean, clearly everybody wanted the most time. I will say Ramaswamy obviously had a ton of time in the first debate and that didn't necessarily help him all that much. So it seemed like he was trying to, I don't know. I mean, he was in the Reagan library. He was talking about the Reagan building. He was talking about
how, you know, everybody on stage, they're all friends. You know, let's not go after each other personally. It seemed very much like he was trying to channel the kind of like Ronald Reagan, traditional Republican that he was absolutely not channeling in the last debate. So I wonder if that works. I think the other candidates were so angry at him all the time that it might not have. No, I mean, what's...
When I say it's a slog, I'm ready for this primary to start moving. And when I say I'm ready, I mean we're running out of time for a major dynamic shift, right? Are you looking for the word winnow? Are you looking for some winnowing? We need a winnow.
or we need something. We need something to change in order for there to be a second place. And without that, this is all just kind of like political theater. And I think that's why I was frustrated. I will say that the candidates, each of them did criticize one another more than I expected them to, especially the Tim Scott, Nikki Haley kind of showdown. But it's September 11th.
28th as of now, the 1250 AM. And something's got to give. Well,
There was the Nikki Haley, Tim Scott moment, but there was also the Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis moment. And I was looking at Google Trends throughout the debate. And this is maybe why I'm a little surprised that you, Jeff, thought that DeSantis won. By a significant clip, the most Googled name at any point was Ron DeSantis.
And it was during the moment when Nikki Haley said Ron DeSantis banned fracking and banned offshore drilling in Florida. And that was a really intense moment where Ron DeSantis didn't really have much of a
of a comeback when he started getting attacked on that. And you see just the biggest rise in terms of Google searches for Ron DeSantis. I imagine people maybe wanting to figure out whether or not he actually banned fracking in Florida. And then shortly after that,
Nikki Haley gets a significant rise in her searches as well. And if you're looking at the totality of the debate, I would say the most Google searches were sort of alternating between Haley and Ramaswamy really for the most. I mean, DeSantis was up there too. Um,
People are going to think that I am in the tank for Nikki Haley. But once again, gun to head, if I had to choose someone who benefits the most from this debate, I think it's Nikki Haley because I think she went in with the agenda of, I know that if I am going, if anything's going to change in this race, it's I have to become number two. Right now, she's barely number three. She kind of beat out Ramaswamy a little bit after the last debate, you know, going to town on him, but...
on foreign policy in China and stuff like that. And I think tonight she went in saying, you know, OK, I'm going to try to knock DeSantis down, if not with voters, at least with donors on the issue of fracking in Florida. And like, my God, you have to think that's a good talking point for people who might start questioning who are Republican voters who are looking for someone to support. They hear what Ron DeSantis banned fracking in Florida, you know?
Yeah, I guess for me, Haley's performance did have a number of strong points. And, you know, I wrote in my sort of review, because she was one of the candidates that I was keeping a close eye on during the debate. You know, I thought she had a lot of strong moments. I guess my question mark with her is I'm not exactly sure, like, as just pure debate theater, her basically saying, I feel dumber every time I hear you talk to Ramaswami was like,
Kind of an amazing moment. Like it was just a very like, just kind of cutthroat comment. Right. And also her sort of back and forth with Tim Scott when they were interrupting each other continuously late in the debate and
Was that the curtains thing? Yeah, yeah, it was weird. It was like hard to even... Scott was like talking about $50,000 curtains at the UN ambassador's residence or something. And she was saying that they were there before she got there. I don't... It was... The whole thing was kind of a weird sequence. And so I guess for me, it's like...
I'm not sure how those actually will play, right? Because, you know, think about the first debate. Ramaswamy talked a lot, seemed to get a lot of attention. To your point, talking about like Google Trends was getting a ton of attention, was at one point like the most Googled person, even more than Trump during that debate.
But in the aftermath of that debate, his favorability numbers actually dropped slightly in terms of the net favorability. So like his favorability went up, but his unfavorability also went up among Republican voters. And so I guess I'm curious to see how all that lands with Haley. Like I don't part of me thinks they were like good moments for her, but I'm also not 100 percent sure how they landed. So that's, I think, part of my my uncertainty.
Yeah, during that like back and forth with Scott and Haley, it kind of seemed like Haley was – I think at one point she said something like, bring it on, you know, like kind of taking it in just but also –
she's projecting that she's the adult on the stage, right? And that she's pretty – I mean, I won't say that she's not flustered because when she said to Ramaswami that listening to him makes her feel dumber, she looked – that looked like a raw moment. But I actually kind of agree that DeSantis had a good night, partially because he is at risk of just completely kind of falling off
I'm just falling off polling. And I think tonight he did enough and changed enough to change his message enough to remain relevant. And I think right now that's the challenge for DeSantis is remaining relevant. It's just like DeSantis remaining relevant doesn't really change the race in general. It's just good for him.
Just for the podcast listeners, sorry, just for the podcast listeners, I want people to understand that Haley turned to Ramaswamy and said, quote, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber, unquote, which I have to say is one of the more like,
Just no holds barred things I've heard someone say in a debate. You know, it was, I mean, from someone not named Trump, interestingly. Yeah. It looks kind of almost off the cuff. Yeah, that's the thing is that actually I wondered about that. Oh, yeah, I don't think that was planned. It's not a canned kind of thing. That was my thought, too, with it was that it was not, it did not sound like a prepped comment.
in the way that we often hear politicians have those canned responses ready. It was, it felt like a, I am genuinely tired of you and I want to go after you with something because I'm upset about you kind of defending TikTok, I think was the point she was trying to make during that exchange. Anyway, I just thought it was worth, worth expounding on that a moment. Yeah, for sure. I do hear though, want to draw a line under something Leah has said a couple of times now on the podcast though, which is,
We're talking about exchanges and we're talking about maybe who won, who had more speaking time, whatever. But none of this fundamentally changes the dynamics of the race. And I think for me, I was like, okay, what's going to happen, right? Somebody has to, what's that like sketch? This was a viral comedy sketch a long time ago. Like who's on the coats? Do you remember? Do you remember that? Am I alone here? No.
But I'm going to Google it and I'm a little afraid of what will come up. So it's a Dane Cook sketch that is about like, you know, you go into a party, there's a room where there's a bunch of coats piled on a bed and someone goes and shits on the coats. And it just...
fundamentally changes the dynamics of the party because somebody's going to go into that room and say, who's on the coats? And from that moment on, the only thing that anyone at the party can talk about is who's on the coats.
And so I'm going into the debate tonight thinking like somebody has to on the coats. Somebody has to do something that we have no choice but to talk about tonight. And we have to talk about tomorrow, even though Joe Biden's, you know, the first impeachment hearings of Joe Biden by House Republicans are going to be started. We you know, we're going to have to talk about through the weekend, even though the government is probably going to shut down like somebody has to.
on the coats so that we have to talk about that for the next, at least, you know, maybe week is generous, but five days. Okay. And we get to halfway through the debate and I'm like, no one is on the coats. No one is on the coats. And not only is no one on the coats,
they're talking about policy details that I can't follow, and I follow this for a living. I don't think most voters can make heads or tails of what they were even talking about when it came to healthcare. As a point of reference, I pulled up what was Donald Trump's position on healthcare in 2016. This is what he tweeted. This was his position. We will immediately repeal and replace Obamacare, and no one can do that like me. We will save money and have much better healthcare.
I mean, Ronald Reagan-esque, the great communicator, you know? I mean, right there. And just the amount of detail, the amount of detail and lack of sh** on the Coates.
did make me feel like, okay, there's really no changing the dynamic of this race unless some external force comes in and changes it. I feel like we could have had a moment. Well, there was the federal, I feel like this is just maybe, there was so much happening, this kind of got swept under the rug. But Pence's calls for a federal expedited death penalty is going to be something that I Google because that was new to me. I had not heard of that as an idea before.
But right at the end, the moderator was like,
You guys all have whiteboards. Write down the name of who we should vote off the island. And the framing is so crass. And like, I'm not saying I actually like the question, but that something was about to happen, you know? And I think what would have happened is everybody wrote VBAC, except for a couple of people who wrote Trump. But then DeSantis came in and did this whole, like, we're above this kind of petty politics thing. And I,
It was over. That was the end of the debate. Then they asked a follow-up saying, can you give me your mathematical calculation into how you're going to win? And just as somebody who interviews candidates for a living, that doesn't work. They will not give you like, well, I think I can win 45% of college-educated white voters. They're not going to do that. It's bad politics.
And I think that's part of why I left frustrated. I was like, this is the note we're ending on? I don't know. Oh, I 100% hear you. It's funny because, as Leah knows, Nathan Gonzalez, Inside Elections, he wrote many years ago a piece about things that losing candidates say.
And DeSantis, in part of neutralizing that sort of survivor scenario, said, when he was asked, like, how are you going to, what's your mathematical path? How do you do it? He's like, polls don't elect presidents. Voters elect presidents. That totally went over my head. I didn't even notice that. Oh. And Nathan, and I actually remember thinking actively, that it popped in my head. I was like, oh, yeah, I remember that article Nathan wrote about, like, all the things that candidates say when they're going to lose. Yeah.
And he actually tweeted out after and he was like, let me add that to my list because it really look, you're down by 40 points in national polling. And yes, it is marginally closer in Iowa and New Hampshire. But if Trump is polling in the low 40s to 50% in Iowa and New Hampshire, like how do you win?
Even if like five of these candidates are still in the race by January. How? How do you do that? You don't. That's the answer. Urgency is like even if even if this field was winnowed down to two people, Trump still probably gets a plurality of at least of the national vote and probably an
Iowa at this point. So like first we have to winnow it down and then there's like a window to a potentially competitive primary. But we're not even at that first step yet. And I think that's where I'm getting a little frustrated kind of watching this is not that I necessarily need something to change, but if these people are actually running for president, something's got to give. And I don't know.
Well, no, to your point, you mentioned the word desperation there. And I think actually some of the way the behavior we saw on the stage tonight reflected that, right? Like Haley and Scott actually going after each other. Haley appointed Scott to the Senate, you know? And so to see the two, like when she was governor of South Carolina, so to see the two of them sort of trying to attack each other, Scott go after her, it's like,
they know that there's pressure from donors to sort of remain relevant in this race with voters, but also donors because you need the money to stay alive, right? So I do think that the amount of interruptions that we saw, the crosstalk, a lot of that does reflect the feeling of like, I have to stay on the island to use the survivor reference, right? So I have to figure out any way I can. So
Yeah, I think desperation does reflect a little bit of what we saw in terms of the behavior. Yeah, everyone's still on the island.
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Okay, little academic exercise here. We're all sort of suggesting something's got to give, someone has to **** on the coats. Just sort of blue-skying here, what could anyone, you know, it's easy to, from our position, be like, oh, you got to do something, you got to do something, change the dynamic. Like, what could anyone do to change the dynamics of this race?
So there's the kind of nuclear option, which is what Democrats did in 2020 when it looked like Bernie Sanders was going to win the nomination, which was choose another candidate. Not just say it's not Bernie, not just say it's not Trump, but actually choose another candidate that they're all going to get around. I think it's way too early for that. Even, you know, that would be like,
that didn't happen until, you know, like one... Super Tuesday. That didn't happen until... The day before Super Tuesday. Pretty far. Two days before South Carolina, right? Yeah, yeah. So we've still got plenty of time for that. But I think, like...
So right after the debate, Ron DeSantis was talking to Hannity and said that he wanted to debate Trump one-on-one. Like, why couldn't he have said that on the debate stage? Because on the debate stage, all he said was, well, Trump isn't here. He's a no-show. And I'd like him to explain his abortion comments. And, you know, if you didn't hear his abortion comments, it's not really a criticism because you have to look them up.
You know, at least kind of ratcheting up the pressure on Trump from a candidate like DeSantis, because we don't need more of that or more of that from somebody like Chris Christie isn't going to change anything. Yeah. No, those are all those are all very good points. Do we think that Trump will debate at any point?
Not unless it gets interesting. And even then, I'm not sure that he would actually show up. As long as he's leading like this, I think he's going to skip them all. I think that's fair. What's the upside? What's the upside for him to participate? All it is is downside where he gets actually, you know, stumbles over himself on something. I mean, obviously, we've seen Trump
do very well on a crowded debate stage, doing well in the sense of sort of dominating the limelight and kind of trying to bring his opponents down a notch or two or 10 if you're Jeb Bush. But if you're up by 40 points in national polling, even if you're up 25 points and you're Donald Trump,
and you're polling at least close to 50, why would you debate and risk some sort of major moment? And have to answer for things like your abortion position shifting, or shifting might be a strong term, but
you know, this position he's taken that a lot of Republicans may not actually like that much, but they like Trump. But then if you have to actually explain yourself on camera, you know, what is that in a live setting? You know, what does that do? So, you know, I just I would assume that he will try to skip if he can. I think that's right. That's more to lose than to gain for Trump. And I and probably for most of the candidates at this point. OK, so one of the things that I do during the debate is just write down every topic as it comes up.
So I'm going to go through and name all of the topics. And if you think that there's anything worth saying on any of the topics, go ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, and I'll stop and we can talk about it. And if you never say ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, I'll just pick the one that was most interesting to me. Okay. So we began with the ongoing strikes and unions, then Reagan's legacy, then
government shutdown, childcare, immigration, crime and drugs, inflation, healthcare, education, critical race theory and slavery, LGBTQ issues. Then there was the I just wrote this down all by itself. I feel stupider every time you speak comment. Then Ukraine, TikTok, I guess, then Ukraine, China, America's farmers using force in Mexico,
national slash national security energy abortion. I didn't hear any ding, ding, ding, ding, dings. I mean, I guess in terms of like the kind of strong comments made by Republican candidates about an issue, you know, immigration or border security, you know, I think if I recall correctly, DeSantis had a good moment there. Haley had a good moment there.
But at the same time, I'm not sure how much, like, I don't know if there's actually anything you can take away on those particular issues in terms of like, it's sort of just very slight degrees of difference. Something like the TikTok moment and talking about China's influence. Like, Ramaswamy is critical of China, but he also was talking up, well, we have to use TikTok while it's here kind of thing. And Haley was like, I'm not having any of that, basically. Yeah.
So that was interesting. I'm not really sure how much it revealed, though, about sort of like internal party disagreements. Yeah, I think that's right. And
Just thinking about, as you were reading through those, I was just trying to remember what every candidate said about those different topics. And I will say the candidate that came up the most for me was actually DeSantis. You know, him talking about sending troops to the border and him really doubling down on his history curriculum and the comments about slavery, which I was really surprised by. And
I also am kind of struck by how little I remember from what Tim Scott said. And I mean, there was, of course, the Nikki Haley moment, but that in my mind is curtains more than anything else. And I wonder, I mean, if we're going to think about a candidate who needed to have a standout moment tonight, I think that's probably Tim Scott. And now that you're
talking about all these topics at once, I'm kind of thinking like he didn't really have that, did he? Yeah. Well, I think to your point, Leia, it's like Scott probably felt the pressure like I got to make something happen here. So he goes after Haley, who he probably feels like there's maybe some overlap of potential support. But did it really land? No.
Not really. And maybe it exposes that Scott's not particularly good at attacking. And I, and that's maybe understandable given sort of, I think the tenor of how he campaigns, he's sort of positive, happy warrior and in a lot of ways, and maybe, maybe attacking someone is just not like kind of a natural fit for him. And that's not like, that's not a criticism. It's just sort of an observation of how he campaigns that it would add up that he might not,
excel at that particular thing. Jeff, I think you make a good point about
the issues and the degree of difference between the candidates. So what was notable about the first debate is the degree to which they went in on issues that the candidates didn't agree on climate change, abortion, um, you know, quite toward the top of the debate, even like Ukraine, Ukraine about Ukraine and intervention. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, but,
Tonight started more on the unions. I mean, unions is interesting, right? Because it sort of puts into high relief the difference between the Republican Party of Reagan and the Republican Party today, where Reagan famously fires the air traffic controllers and
But, you know, now during this debate, Trump was going to support, you know, striking auto union workers during the debate. So obviously things have changed. But I think more what I want to say is, yes, a lot of the prime issues that they talked about, they largely agree on. So it's credations of difference. And these issues like the economy, immigration, wokeness, beating Joe Biden, whatever, are
These are issues that, according to our polling with Ipsos, which we once again did pre and post polling with Ipsos, are, according to voters, the issues that will play the biggest role in deciding their vote. Now, what I will say is.
is, you know, this is the unscientific part, but like out talking to voters, largely Republican voters over the past several days, one, they don't know very many of the candidates who are running other than Donald Trump. Some of them couldn't name a single one or when I would name them be like, yeah, I've heard of this person, but I don't know very much about them. And when you ask about the issues that are motivating them, it is in fact those issues. But what they talk about is, oh, well, gas wasn't $7 under Donald Trump.
Right. It's almost it's approaching seven dollars in this part of Southern California. Like I could not actually even believe my eyes when I saw the gas prices coming from a place where everyone complains about four dollar gas. But the
this is the way in which Donald Trump works as an incumbent. People have a record of what was life like when Donald Trump was president that they point to as his argument. And so he doesn't even have to be on stage making his case for this is what I will do on the economy. This is what I will do on immigration. This is what I will do on China or tariffs or national security or foreign interventions or whatever. Everyone just
already has in mind what were these things like when he was president, and that's his answer to these questions. And none of these candidates are going to be able to really compete with that. I mean, totally. I wonder if the candidates on stage were actually...
uniformly critical of Trump if that incumbent advantage would be as strong. And I actually don't know if I agree with the argument I'm about to make. Oh, my favorite kind of argument. Make it all the time. Devil's advocate. 1.15 a.m. with Vino Verdig. Let's do this. No. So...
I think about this a lot with campaigns, how just silence in general allows other candidates to come and fill a void. And that's something that I literally wrote about today for, you know, the Cook Report, literally today about a House race where a candidate was being really quiet but had a famous last name. And what could Democrats do with that?
Um, so I, if, if the candidates on stage were all united and saying, well, Donald Trump isn't actually pro-life or, you know, if they were all united against his, his position on, uh, Ukraine, something like that, I do wonder if he would have to speak up. But, but,
Because voters pre-existing view of him is what he wants it to be anyway. Like he doesn't have to change anything and nobody's changing it for him. And this gets back to my central gripe. Something's got to change. It's a reasonable thought. I mean, it's sort of like the chorus of Republican leaders or something. If they were all united saying like, we can't have Trump again. And here's why X, Y, Z.
you know, that would probably get some more coverage. It would press Trump in some way. I mean, I don't, it's not a terrible theory. I mean, look, if there are Republicans who do not want Donald Trump to be the nominee, we are definitely at the throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks part of the campaign already. So it's as good a theory as you're going to hear. So I don't know. It's a thought. Right. Right.
We're like seeing reporters. I saw some reporters post throughout the night, you know, getting texts from Republican donors and leaders who are really concerned nobody's having a breakout moment. And it's like you got to stop thinking about this as individual candidates and start thinking about it as a group if that's what your goal is. So we should still have a primary. Like it's still worth – it's still a good democratic process, all that. Yeah.
But it makes it harder to like handicap whether there's this can be a second place person. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Okay. Well, as you just mentioned, Leah, it is. Sorry, before we wrap up, most important question of this podcast. I've been calling you Leah. Jeff has been calling you Leah. Is it Leah or Leah?
Oh, gosh. I'm so sorry. So my grandma and like my family, a lot of them call me Leah. I'm usually I go by Leah in workplaces, but I won't hear it if you call me Leah because I'm so used to it. So other people will notice it. So the answer is both. The answer is Leah, but I won't. OK. It's not that I it's not that I'm like hearing you and I'm thinking like, oh, this is.
I won't notice it. I will not notice it. Anyway. Okay, Leah. Sorry. No, it's okay. I don't apologize. No, I'm Jeff with a G. I'm very cognizant of name things, so I like to get them right. You're totally good. My favorite is when my name gets spelled G-A-Y-L-A-N-D. No. It happens. You'd be surprised how often it happens. Yes. Yes.
But anyway, we won't rehash my middle school trauma over glasses of wine at 1.15 in the morning. So instead, we'll end the podcast. Jeff and Leah, thank you so much for joining me this evening. Thanks so much. This was... Thank you, Galen. Way more fun than the debate itself. All right. Love to hear it. My name is Galen Druk. Tony Chow and Cameron Shortavian are in the control room.
Trying to do this by memory, but you can get in touch with us at any podcast at 538.com. Tell someone about us, rate us on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast. Or yeah, more importantly, tell your friends because I feel like that's a better way
persuasion tactic than just leaving a review. Be like, yo, you know me well, so you should listen to my advice and listen to this podcast. Um, something, something, something. Literally a campaign. Literally a campaign strategy that the actual candidates use. Like, get a friend to tell a friend about things because it is more persuasive. We need a bundler for the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast. Um, anyway, thanks so much for listening and we will see you soon. ...
