Lt Governor Geoff Duncan on Georgia's Midterm Message 58:19

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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Sam is out with a little bit of a cold today, so he's nursing it and being a little bit of a baby, but I'm here to help entertain you. And today, our first guest, friend of the show, Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan, former professional baseball player, successful entrepreneur. He was elected Georgia's Lieutenant Governor in 2018. And Jeff, thanks for joining the show.

Yeah, glad to be here, all the way from the great state of Georgia. It's one of the centers of the universe right now, I'll tell you. So I want to talk quickly about the turnout in Georgia. So the turnout is 60% higher at the same point in 2018. You're having record voter interest and turnout. The electorate's older turning out. It's blacker. That doesn't sound like you guys did a very good job on suppression. So what's happened?

Yeah, certainly we continue to track in the direction of watching our elections continue to grow in popularity and ease. We want it to be hard to cheat and easy to vote. That's certainly what we've put forward. I do think there's a little bit of comparison traps that are going on. 2018 was a different day and age. It almost feels like 20 years ago in comparison because

Because in Georgia, our lives changed in 2020 with the post-election fallout and then the runoffs and all of that stuff. So comparing this midterm election to the last midterm election probably isn't necessarily statistically fair, but it does show that we're moving in the right direction for sure.

What has been your surprise about the 2022 election in Georgia? I mean, like you said, 2018 seemed like 20 years ago. So what's different about it now than when you ran for lieutenant governor in 2018?

Well, I was proud to run alongside Governor Kemp in 2018 and certainly in Georgia. We run in separate lanes, but we partnered pretty quickly in the pursuit to win those seats against Stacey Abrams and the machine that kind of followed, the national machine that followed her. Surprised maybe to a lot, but not me, that Brian Kemp is 10-plus points up in front of Stacey Abrams.

She spent an entire 2018 cycle trying to tell the state everywhere she went, Brian Kemp could never do what he said he was going to do. He spent four years doing what he said he was going to do, and now she has nothing to run on. And all Brian does is walk in a room, point to how he handled the pandemic better than any other governor, how he's dealt with civil unrest, a booming economy, raging unemployment, coming back to regular unemployment.

That's all he does. Fifteen minutes. Answers a few questions, moves on, turns the heads of those folks on the right in the middle, and he's a 10-plus point leader. What do you feel are some of the greatest accomplishments Governor Kemp and you as lieutenant governor have had the last four years? You talked a little bit about COVID, but tell us some of the successes as you are leaving office that you're most proud of. Yeah.

We did a lot of work, certainly proud of the pandemic stuff. I mean, that was not easy and there was no textbook to go to. We could open up Republican, you know, playbook one on one and see what we how you handle a pandemic. But certainly glad that we sided on on the side of small business owners and families.

getting back to work and getting back to life as quickly as possible, all the while making sure that we had hospital systems that were operating and all the equipment and vaccines and all that. So super proud of that work. Outside of that, I think we tackled a number of really, really important issues in Georgia, especially through the Senate-led stuff with health care. We passed over 50 bipartisan health care bills that made it easier to gain access to health care and truly did lower costs across the state.

We tried to take some nibbles out of school choice. We passed a heartbeat bill. More importantly than just the outcomes of the heartbeat bill, I was really passionate about doing it the

the right way, not trying to poke somebody in the eye that, you know, pro-life, pro-choice. We simply went after a conversation that was very fact-based and rooted in what I believe a majority of Georgians were supportive of. Let me ask you, I'm going to go back to hear a minute about COVID. So do you feel Georgia, and due to the leadership of Governor Kemp and you and others, is better prepared for the next time we have some sort of

COVID-related epidemic again. So I'm going to make a broad statement here. I think the rest of the country is going to be better prepared for the next pandemic, possibly, because of what Georgia did. We showed that you can balance lives and livelihoods in a nonpartisan manner. Governor

Governor Kemp and I and the Speaker and other legislative leaders were sitting in the room not talking about what's a good playbook for – what's a good decision for Republicans in this situation or Democrats in this situation. We just simply made good decisions for 11 million Georgians, and I hope that's a playbook for the rest of the country to adhere to, and not just in difficult times, but in good times too. I mean, that's my whole –

energy behind this GOP 2.0 push is I just genuinely believe I'm a Republican because I believe my my my ability to tackle problems through a conservative plan is a better approach and I'm not angry about it and I think it's a better mesh point to those that don't agree with me and that's really what I think we're putting on display in Georgia's hey we're not out to pick a fight for partisan reasons we're just here to get conservative solutions across the finish line

Tell us a little bit about the political environment out there right now. As you know, the U.S. Senate race, what's amazing about it is Governor Kemp's race sort of becomes a secondary item people mention now. I don't think they realize how remarkable it is that a

He had the former president come after him. And then B, you supposedly had the Stacey Abrams machine, which is not producing as everybody thought it would, especially the blue checkmark reporters in D.C. and in New York. Tell us tell us about the Herschel Walker race. How's it looking? Do you feel Mr. Walker has momentum? People you're I mean, you're out all the time seeing people. What is your two cents on this?

Certainly, Herschel Walker has momentum at this point. The turning point was how he did better in the debate than Raphael Warnock. I think there was a delta between the two of them. Warnock did way worse than expectations, and Herschel did way better than expectations. That's just being honest, and I think folks on both sides of the aisle would evaluate it that way. That was a catalyst.

and he's continued to gain momentum. It does feel like it's tracking towards a runoff type situation. I couldn't have hit that by one or two percentage points, but

It feels like we're going in that direction. And once again, it feels like the balance of the U.S. Senate is once again going to rest in a runoff in Georgia. And you can't imagine how intense it is like it was with the Loeffler-Purdue situation. I have been pretty vocal about the fact that it's not necessarily about the stuff that Herschel's having to deal with personally, but it

But it was the process we went through to pick Herschel Walker, and I'm not a fan of it. I'm not a fan of only picking somebody in a primary that's a football star and endorsed by Donald Trump. I feel like we should have went to a deeper dive into the makeup and the plan and the leadership and really have run through the paces during a primary process instead of during a general process. It just...

It's a painful process to watch play out. And look, that's the reason why Brian Kemp is 10-plus points ahead and Herschel Walker at best in the best polls are even or down a couple. That's a huge spread in statewide races. 100%. Do you feel that due to Governor Kemp's strength that he's able to pull Herschel Walker across the finish line?

Certainly there's going to be a lot of Republicans that show up to vote. I can only imagine how many Republicans are out there not wanting Stacey Abrams to be in charge next time there's a pandemic or civil unrest or a struggling economy wants Brian Kemp to stay in charge. And so that's certainly going to run more Republicans out. But you know,

I think there's a little bit of a miscalculation that goes on in Republicans, not just in Georgia, but nationally. We don't have enough support to win these big statewide races typically without getting some of the middle to come our way. Right. And I think the mistake being made is that too many people, too many maybe consultants or even those candidates are thinking that the middle is uneducated or uneducated.

or, you know, doesn't really pay attention to the details. I think it's the opposite. I think the middle might be the smartest batch of them all. They're the ones that are able to put stuff on the scale and say, well, there's enough good here that I can go this way, or where do they add on this? I think we need to communicate to the middle with a much more articulate message to get them to come out of the way.

I want to get more here in the next segment with you on your book, GOP 2.0, How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America's Conservative Party. But I want to ask you two more political questions about Georgia right now. How do you feel this runoff will be versus 2020? What will be the difference in your mind versus what happened in 2020 versus if Herschel and Senator Warnock are in a runoff now?

Well, one adjustment is a technical adjustment, and that is we switched from nine weeks to I think it's four weeks. That was part of the augmentation of kind of lessons learned, and I think both parties realized that was just too long of a runoff period. But we're going to watch hundreds of millions of dollars flow in, and unfortunately it's going to end up being about 10-second soundbites.

and it's going to be about, you know, how many 30-second smear campaign commercials can you throw up on a TV. And, you know, I said this on TV the other night, I just...

And I genuinely mean this. I don't think this is what the founding fathers had in mind when they were selecting one of 100 of the most important people in our country to make decisions. I just think we the people have got to get better at this, of not giving in to the temptation to vote for somebody because they had the snarkiest Twitter post that day or because they only used a 1% fact to make 100% truth.

Well, that's a great point. So, you know, you're going to be inundated with $100 million of campaign spending, and most of it's going to go on digital and TV. As you're out talking to various groups, meeting with businesses, meeting with donors, what percentage of those people you think are actually watching those digital spots and TV spots? I think there's so much money thrown at it, and I think...

It's an easy way for the political consultant class, and I'm a consultant, that they just throw this up and collect a commission. I'm not sure how many people are watching this anymore.

Yeah, you're spot on. I do think a lot of this is fed by the 10% crowd that makes 10% of every dollar that's spent on all of this advertising. But look, if I'm a Republican, this should be a simpler equation than what we're watching play out around the country to try to gain control of the Senate, to try to gain control of a lot of these statewide races.

Joe Biden is an absolute disaster. And that's not just out of my mouth. That's out of my friends on the left that want to remain nameless, right? It's a disaster. It's embarrassing to watch the lack of leadership, the lack of decision making, just the cognitive skills. All of that in a bowl is really a reason why he should be president of the United States, just like, in my opinion, Donald Trump should never be president of the United States again. We've watered down our expectations, but

But we as Republicans should point to the fact that that's where the problem lies, is we are dealing with an economy that is essentially a falling knife right now because of bad policy. Inflationary rises in every commodity class, chaos all over the globe, yet we want to sit here and nitpick on each other. And to me, the issues are too big to nitpick.

Quickly here, we have less than a minute left on this segment, then we'll bring you back on for the last segment here. At the end of the day in November, how many congressional seats do Republicans have in Georgia and how many do the Democrats have?

I think everything's going to end up staying the same. There's one contested race down in, I think it's the 2nd Congressional District, Chris West and Stanford Bishop. I know that's kind of a dogfight going back and forth. But my concern is we win the House, but we send too many Marjorie Taylor Greene clones up there to carry our message. There's a lot of people who agree with that. This is Breaking Bowgrounds with Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan of Georgia. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're lucky today to have with us Georgia's Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan, who was elected in 2018 and is finishing up his term and is not running again.

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while helping college students rearrange their loans. So visit refy.com or call 855-316-3087 and discover the investment options they have for you and your future. Again, call in 855-316-3087 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. All right, Jeff, you wrote a book about

after the 2020 elections called GOP 2.0, how the 2020 election can lead to a better way forward for America's conservative party. What, when you wrote the book, that you wish you had added now, a year plus later after writing the book? How bad bad can get when you lose?

I think I would have doubled down on the fact, knowing what I know now, we foolishly lost a national election for president because we got too busy staring in the mirror instead of staring at the problems.

and I would have written a chapter about this is what happens when you do that. And you have runaway inflation. You've got a global embarrassing situation. Almost every day we seem to not put our best foot forward. There's chaos. You have programs like the student loan program that just makes no sense to 80% of America on both sides of the aisle. Yeah, that would be what the chapter is. This is what it looks like when you make a mistake.

What do you feel as you're leaving office that are the two or three things that Congress and D.C. need to focus on to start to get this country on a better path? I'm not one of those people who's, what was me, America is a failing empire. But what are the two or three things that you think they need to tackle to put us on a better path forward for our kids and grandkids?

Yeah, I think we've got to tackle spending and health care. Those are the two biggest threats. And, you know, I think the spending threat is real, you know, and we can all look through the lens of what that looks like as a family, right? If you overspend and you run out of money or your credit's so bad you can't borrow, you run out of options. I mean, in the

In the real world, you end up homeless. In our country, we just fire up a printing press. So I think we've got to absolutely attack spending because it's going to take a generation to get it corrected.

And then secondly is the health care piece. We've got to do something about figuring out this health care from a national perspective. You know, I'm now about ready to go back in the private sector, and I'm looking at what it's going to cost to have health insurance for me and my wife and three kids. It's astronomical. I mean, it feels like it's doubled since I was paying for it four years ago. It did. It did. It did. It's a mortgage. It's a mortgage. Just call it for what it is. It's a mortgage.

if not more. So, and we've nibbled around the edges here in Georgia to the best of our abilities. We've made paying parity with, you know, telehealth. We've done, you know, all types of stuff. We had waivers that the Trump administration was in favor of and then the Biden administration

a decline. But the real movement has got to happen at the national level. And, you know, I think as Republicans, it's fair game for us to finally stop just complaining about Obamacare so we can win a primary somewhere or win a general and actually start finding solutions, start finding programs that allow us to tap into, you know, 21st century technology to drive down the cost and gain better access.

Yeah. So you're leaving office. You decide not to seek reelection. You're going to go back and join the private sector and enjoy your family more time with them. If you were sitting with some young, young folks who want to get involved in politics and you just had an opportunity to sit down, have a little barbecue. What would you tell them? What are the lessons you've learned that you want to relay to them to make them better, better leaders, more service oriented? What would you tell them?

Yeah, I would tell them, you know, be honest with yourself every day when you show up to work and be honest. Some folks show up to politics because they just love politics. They love the game, the nature of it and the excitement of it. A lot of folks show up like me and they walk in the front door of the Capitol because they want to change the policy direction of their state or of their country.

And so I had to remind myself every day why I was there. I was there to pay attention to the words on the page and to put the policy over the politics. And I had to make tough decisions. I had to walk away from conversations. I had to not take the easiest path to getting something accomplished. And so I would just tell these folks to just be honest with yourself every day on the way to work. That's fantastic. When you first were elected and you went to the Capitol, I'm sure there's this wonderful feeling.

Do you still have that tingly feeling when you walk up to the Capitol, or has cynicism just sunk into your soul? No, it still does. The best part of the job of lieutenant governor here in Georgia is you're the president of the Senate for 40 legislative days out of the year, which normally takes you from January through the beginning of April. And it's the best time.

It's the, you know, working to build consensus. It's working with both caucuses. It's, you know, negotiating with the House. It's digging deep and researching. You know, it's nothing for me to have a 20-year-old intern, a whole room full of them doing the research that's going to help us, you know, get a $30 billion budget passed. I mean, it's teamwork. It felt like a baseball locker room to me. And that's what I'm going to miss. Will you stay involved in politics or are you done?

No, you know, I hope to get back in elected office one day. I'm not leaving, you know, banged up and scarred. You know, oftentimes folks say, well, you know, you should have won or you should have ran because you would have won. Well, I actually knew that when I made the decision not to run. It's just I'm ready to have a conversation with America about a better pathway forward for the GOP. And, you know, to do that, I can't just sit inside of Georgia. And so I've got the book and I'm speaking a lot of places around the country and I do a lot of media work and

you know, and oh, by the way, I'm, you know, going to drift off into the private sector a little bit. And then also spent a bunch of time with three great kids in an awesome life. And if that affords me the opportunity to run again at some point in the future, then certainly I'll get that. But,

But, you know, for me, I don't want to go to work and jam a square peg to a round hole as a Republican that wants actually conservative policies. It's just not enough for me to win an election. I want to get stuff done. And so for me, I'm just going to commit the next few years of my life to doing that. As we got our closing minute and a half here, what do you wish people in Georgia would know about Governor Kemp?

He is the same guy in front of a bay of microphones as he is sitting one-on-one in the backyard. He is as genuine of a person as I've ever met. And when he sits there and pours out his heart at that stage, talking about the big, tough decision, whether it be the pandemic or riot police or the budget or teachers, I mean, he genuinely has thought through it, he's deliberated it, and he means it. That's fantastic.

With a minute left here, what are some final words you want to tell Georgia about hope for the future? What would you tell them? Say, you know, don't get negative. Don't get pessimistic. The future is bright. What would you tell them? Yeah, Georgia is one of those lucky states that our best days are truly in front of us. I mean, our economy continues to

to go and grow. One of my big mantras was Georgia becoming a technology capital of the East Coast, and we're well on our way to doing that. But I challenge every Georgian when I walk into a room to just take on the honor of being an example, a role model for other states in the country. Let's get this right.

Let's put on display what educating our kids in the 21st century looks like. Let's look at how we lead the country in delivering health care, growing an economy, keeping taxes low, being genuine people. We have an opportunity to lead a nation right now. Thank you. And I want Georgians to take that seriously.

Thank you, Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan of Georgia. Again, folks, go out and buy his book, GOP 2.0, How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America's Conservative Party. We'll also post that on our Facebook page, Breaking Battlegrounds, and also on Twitter. Thanks a million, Lieutenant Governor. We appreciate having you on.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Sam is out being wimpy today with a cold. So we have on the show with us David Drucker. He is a friend of the show. He is also the senior political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

And we're going to talk about this show about politics because we have an election coming up next week, which depending what side you talk to, well, both sides, the world will either go forward in bliss and beauty or we're all going to crumble and die. David, is the political mantra now the enemy of my enemy is my friend? I mean, is that where both sides are basically at?

Pretty much. I mean, obviously there are different segments of voters, and different segments of voters will feel that to varying degrees. But when we talk about the base of each party, so much of it now is about who do you hate, who are your enemies, and if you're against the people I'm against, then, well, ideas, I mean, they matter, and some of them are deal-breakers, but what matters is that you're willing to throw punches,

throw them hard and throw them at the people that I think deserve them. Is that more ingrained now than it was, say, four, six, eight, ten years ago? I think that this has been coming on over the past 10 to 20 years.

You know, what I find is that our politics are just more tribal. But even for voters who are left or right because they're very committed to ideas or to policies, there seems to be more of a feeling that they share. And it's ironic that the right and the left seem to share this, that

The other side's ideas are damaging. The other side's ideas are not just wrong. They're not just going to make things not as good as they could be otherwise. They're going to radically reorient the country. They're going to benefit one group over another. And it's all going to be done on purpose because they want us to hurt. They want to ruin the country. They want to...

cause pain to certain segments of society. And I think that's really the biggest thing. Obviously, you look at American history, we've been battling over differences for, you know, since the very beginning, sometimes more so than others.

I think in the 20th century with the Cold War and the U.S. emerging as a global leader and a preeminent superpower, we went through a period where the politics were very intense. They could often be brutal, but voters themselves were less tribal. And that's why you would see that if a president or a member of Congress of a particular party

Wisconsin, who have done something immoral or illegal, you'd see the country or a particular state turn against that individual, even if the other choice went against the grain according to their politics or the policies they preferred. And now you see voters on both sides willing to put up with or even embrace politicians who fall short morally or otherwise because anything's better than the other guy.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, you hear this. I think it's on social media a lot that Joe Biden's purposely destroying the country. You know, I don't believe that. I don't agree with Joe Biden's policies. I think he is under a spell to some degree with some progressive staffers and the act blue universe. But I don't believe Joe Biden wakes up and says, you know, how can I destroy America today? Do you feel that way?

Well, I think that the point you're making is what we've gotten away from. You know, again, and I don't want to sound like a broken record here, you look at political advertising going back at least to the 1960s, and clearly...

people, political candidates were making very harsh accusations against their opponents. I'm thinking of the Daisy ad that LBJ ran against Barry Goldwater, which basically said, if Barry Goldwater is elected, we're going to end up in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. But LBJ didn't say that Goldwater wanted that to happen. He was

He was just saying, this is how bad it could be because this man is too far to the right. Great point. And that's the difference, right? Now what the ad would say is, Barry Goldwater wants to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, so you better vote for LBJ because I'm the only one that doesn't want to do that. And the way you look at it, the way I look at it, a lot of voters don't look at it that way anymore. Well, you know, and you look at the point when Trump was president, you know,

social media is full of he's going to cause World War III. And, you know, you have Joe Biden now with what's going on in Ukraine, and that's a conversation for another day. But, you know, I don't know if we're close to World War III, but we are closer than Trump. We were ever with Trump, right? I mean, it's a real bullet being fired. I mean, look, I don't like to over-speculate on, you know, whether or not

One candidate or the other puts us closer to World War III. You know, look, what I would say is that I think Trump was a lot more dovish on matters of foreign policy than many voters on the left believed. I think Biden is a lot less dovish than many Republicans believe he is.

Clearly, his pullout from Afghanistan was damaging to our national security and standing in the world. David, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back to finish that thought. This is Breaking Battlegrounds with David Drucker, Washington Examiner.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Today with us, we are lucky to have David Drucker. He is a senior political correspondent for the Washington Examiner. You can find him on Twitter, and you can always find us on Facebook, Instagram, at LinkedIn, at Breaking Battlegrounds, and on Twitter at Breaking underscore Battle. Quickly, we want to talk about an opportunity for our listeners to put some money away from retirement. Inflation is eating up your retirement.

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David, what has surprised you as you have covered and gone state to state various races? What is a race that has really fascinated you? Do you feel the momentum for Hispanics voting more Republican is real or is that just a mirage that's being created? Tell us a little bit more about what you're finding out there.

Well, excuse me. I've made it so far. Let's see. Wisconsin, Ohio, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. I think crime is a much bigger issue than I...

thought it would be at the outset. I knew it was a big issue. I had seen the polling. I had talked to voters. But when I was on the ground covering these Senate races, the degree to which voters talked about crime and their concerns about crime in the same way they talked about inflation and their concerns about the economy

uh... was very striking to me in nevada in particular i paid close attention to what republicans are doing to wound up hispanic vote uh... i visited a a republican field office and i heavily hispanic neighborhood on the east side of las vegas uh... i had visited a uh... field office just like it on the south side of milwaukee republicans are working hard to wound up hispanic vote in many of these states it was interesting to see it in action in nevada where there are so many hispanic voters

Republicans feel like Laxalt has an opportunity to score 40% of the Hispanic vote. If he can do that, I think he's going to be hard to beat in Nevada. And if you talk to Republicans outside of Nevada, they think Laxalt in that race is their surest path to 51 votes in the Senate majority. So, you know, there are a lot of interesting things.

sub-campaigns going on in each of these contests. A lot of them are close or have been close, and I think will stay close. We see that even in wave elections. We see that the races might all tip one way, but they're close individually. But I think the level to which voters are very concerned about public safety, I think at least at the outset of the fall, as I started traveling, I think was a little bit underappreciated, in part because the staffs show...

that crime is not necessarily as bad as it was in its heyday in the 70s and 80s, maybe for some early 90s, right around the time voters in many states were passing initiatives for three-strikes laws and law enforcement was getting tougher on crime and cleaning things up in our inner cities and the rest of our cities. And voters, even in safe suburbs or presumably safe suburbs, are frustrated.

are feeling the anxiety about crime in many ways in the same ways as people in urban areas that have to deal with it much more. And I think that's played a large role in why Republicans are poised to have a very good election day. Let's go back to a minute about the Hispanic outreach. You know, if Republicans start getting 40, 45 percent of the Hispanic vote in, say, Arizona, Nevada, that's a real game changer, isn't it?

It can be. I mean, there's a lot of realignment going on, right? So Democrats are doing better with suburban voters that typically have voted Republican most of the time than they have in the past. Republicans are showing signs of doing better with Hispanic voters. First of all, it's not going to hurt. Second of all, particularly in some of these states where there are growing Hispanic populations, even where they're –

per capita, not as many of them as there are out west. It matters because it cuts into the Democratic coalition. You know, I point out that in states like Nevada and Texas and Arizona, Republicans have routinely done much better with the Hispanic vote than they've done in blue states like California and other areas, right? I mean, even in 2020, Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in Nevada. Trump

did 37 percent with the hispanic vote so we're not looking at republicans going from zero to forty percent but we are seeing them make gains i think where you're going to see potentially the biggest game changer effect of this is in texas where you have these counties along the mexican border in congressional district districts that for years have been dominated by democrats and it looks like republicans have a chance to make some head headway there and win some of these seats so

So I think even though Texas is another state where Hispanics are typically 35% of the vote, more than another state,

the headway is going to actually show up in some real-time gains that we haven't seen in a long time. We're with David Drucker. He is the senior political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. David, you wrote an article on the 27th, Fetterman defends debate performance, downplayed Strokes' impact on Senate service. What are two words you would use to describe that debate between Fetterman and Oz?

Well, I don't know, one or two words. I didn't give you one. I didn't make it that hard. I'm going to give you two so you can hedge on one.

Well, let's just say Oz won. Yeah, that's two words. But here's the funny thing. I mean, it's not necessarily funny, but here's the interesting thing. Oz didn't necessarily have that great of a debate. Against a more formidable candidate or a candidate that was not struggling with cognitive challenges because of a stroke, he might have come out of that debate on the wrong side.

The issue is that for the voters that were tuning into that debate in Pennsylvania, not sure which way they wanted to vote.

They saw one candidate that didn't necessarily look like they were fit to handle the rigors of the job. And they saw another candidate that, whether they liked him or not, seemed like a pretty well-versed politician who can handle the issues, even if they don't like how he's going to handle the issues. And when you combine that with the fact that Republicans have history in terms of midterm elections performance and

And the issues on their side, you know, the fact that the president's approval ratings are not that good, it just was not a good enough showing for Fetterman to overcome doubts about where he is health-wise after that stroke that he suffered in May.

Do you feel Oz wins Pennsylvania? I don't like to make predictions in my job. What I will tell you is that he has the momentum, and the debate worked in his favor, and it's their only debate, and probably better off with Fetterman than it is. And he is more likely to win than not, but because there was so much early voting in Pennsylvania, more than half a million votes already cast, and because this race is close...

Because there are doubts about Oz and because he just recently moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey and is not speaking Republican politics. I think you need to hedge a little bit and wait and see.

So you wrote an article for The Washington Examiner magazine, Republicans on a Roll. Tell our audience what you see. Why do you feel Republicans are on a roll? Well, look, you look at the polling, the generic ballot, the president's approval rating. You look at how voters feel about the issues. What are the most important issues to them? Inflation, crime, things like that. You look at who they trust on those polls.

uh... issues republicans over democrats uh... all signs are pointing to republicans having a very good night it was uh... not necessarily that that way late summer early fall

I think we had drifted out of a wave scenario at that point because of reaction to the overturning of Roe versus Wade, increased energy among Democratic voters who were concerned about abortion rights. We saw Donald Trump also become dominant in the news again, and that got them going. You also have the issue of some key pieces of legislation. Democrats were able to get to Joe Biden's desk.

at the end of the summer that made Democrats feel like they finally have something for their majority. And all those things conspired to give Democrats a chance to buck history to some degree or another. And in fact, Democrats are more energized than you would expect from the party on its heels in a midterm election. And so you have to watch some of these races and not get too bullish if you're a Republican.

But you still have to say that, especially with thin majorities that the Democrats are defending, it's a 50-50 Senate that they control because of a tiebreaker from the vice president. It's a five-seat, roughly, maybe six-seat majority in the House. Republicans are on track to win majorities. I think the question is just how big can they get.

There's still more time left in this campaign. You don't want to make too many hard and fast predictions. But look, I mean, I think it's pretty clear if you could choose to be a Republican today or a Democrat today purely on how the elections are going to go, you'd rather be a Republican. I think I saw a turning point after, you know, the upswing a little bit for Democrats this summer. You know, inflation has always been there. But a lot of these suburban voters and professionals, they can come up the extra couple hundred dollars a month for gas, food, things of that nature.

I think what we started seeing here in Arizona is when the interest rates got past 6, 6.5%, now it's at 7. Now you're hearing about a lot of mortgage brokers losing their jobs because 80% of refinance, you know, 80% of mortgages are refinances. It's some of those things like that that really start affecting people realizing I can't sell my house if I want to move. I can't really buy unless I have cash to do my house. And those are the things that really seem to stick out. And we noticed that the

We just noticed the motivation change here in Arizona when those type of things happen, even beyond the inflation and so forth. Have you noticed that in other parts of the country as you traveled? Well, I noticed it, but it just wasn't unexpected. Look, when Americans feel like their pocketbooks are squeezed,

I mean, that's some of the worst kind of anxiety. I mean, even with crime, as fearful as it can make people and as uncomfortable as it can make people, oftentimes, whether it's true or not, people feel like they can do things to mitigate that. Maybe it's because of where they live, and they feel like they can avoid other places where there's crime. Right.

At least, you know, maybe they can stay inside. I mean, there's a million things they may think they can do. But money is money. You've got to go to work. You've got to earn a living. You've got to buy groceries. You've got to fill up your car with gas.

There's no way around it. When those things feel, you know, squeezed, especially if you have children, you're putting kids through school, you're about to put kids through college. I mean, you know, I can kick down the list here. It's just a special kind of anxiety. Anybody that has felt financial pressure knows it's a special kind of anxiety. You wake up with it. You go to sleep with it.

And if they feel like they can make a change politically to make things better or send a big message that you better find something to do to make this better, more often than not, people are going to do it. We have two minutes left here. When we had you on the show last, you had talked about what a great candidate Republicans had in Washington and the state of Colorado. Which of those two do you feel still have a possibility to becoming a U.S. senator?

Well, it's a hard call there. Joe O'Day in Colorado is doing everything right. It's just a really tough state for Republicans, and because our politics are so tribal, as we just discussed, it's hard for one party to break through in a state where the politics works against them. And Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, is probably going to win rather easily, and so that's an additional headwind for Joe O'Day. Tiffany Smiley in Washington State,

Also, just swimming upstream, Republicans that I've talked to are as high on her as they are on anyone in terms of candidate quality. But they believe that the Dobbs decision, if it's going to have an impact anywhere, they believe that it may be the thing that makes it simply too high of a climb for Smiley to get past Patty Murray, a longtime incumbent there in Washington.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. What will you be looking for on election night when the first results come out? What race will you be looking at that tells you if so-and-so wins, there's really a wave coming on?

Well, look, I think I'm going to be looking at the House districts where Biden won pretty significantly to see how Republicans are doing there. If they're winning some of those seats, they're in a really good place. If Republicans are winning the Senate in Georgia, the majority is gone and gone immediately. And I'll also be taking a look at Pennsylvania for that same reason.

If Fetterman cannot flip that seat for Democrats, I don't know how they hang on to their majority. Well, David, thank you for joining the show today. David Drucker, you can find him. He is a senior political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. We highly encourage you to follow him on Twitter and follow his articles. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.votes and, of course, on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at BreakingBattlegrounds. David, thank you for joining the show. We always appreciate having you on. Thanks so much.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. We're so lucky to have with us today because he picked up the phone, Joe Simonson. He is a senior investigative reporter for the Washington Free Beacon. He previously worked as an investigative reporter and campaign correspondent for the Washington Examiner. Joe, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me. All right. You're hopping around the country like a vagabond, maybe even a hobo, train to train, city to city. Uh-huh. I got my bindle. Perfect. What are you finding? Is there really momentum for Republicans, or is this something that's not really happening? I certainly think that in the past month or so, there has been a real shift. I think a lot of Republicans are coming home. I'm certainly sensing...

A lot more confidence from Republican operatives or staffers for both the national Republican Party and also for local Republican parties across the country. Just a real shift in mood since maybe August when things seemed a little more dour.

What race has surprised you as you've been hopping around? What is something out there that stood out to you as you've gone to these various states and looked at, like, Colorado and Pennsylvania and so forth? Yeah, I mean, certainly Colorado is one where I think you're starting to see more national Republican groups will slowly start to spend more money in. That was always kind of...

The Colorado Senate race in particular, where you have Republican Joe O'Day versus incumbent Democrat Michael Bennett, that was always kind of depending on the national mood of the country, whether Republicans felt confident in picking it up. One thing about that race in particular is that Michael Bennett is really an extraordinarily weak incumbent. He's never won 50 percent of the vote statewide. Republicans almost won it in 2010, I think.

I think

In that election, Bennett only got 49.5% of the vote. So this is always kind of a sleeper race that Republicans in the state have been eyeing for a really long time. Bennett, like I said, is really one of the weaker incumbents on the map this year, even if Colorado has been kind of solidly blue for a few cycles. But, you know, Joe O'Day's team is very confident. So what they keep telling me and...

Is that, look, you know, Michael Bennett can't break 47, 48 percent in any poll. And it's really, really hard. And if you talk to any political strategist on your team, if you're coming down to Election Day and your candidate can't break 50 percent,

you're really nervous. So I think that's kind of a race to keep an eye on. I think that's one of those races where when we, on election night, if Republicans start doing really, really well on the East Coast, you know, really outperforming the polls, people are going to be spending a lot more time looking at Colorado as the night drags on.

And, you know, more on the East Coast or further east, you know, Ohio, I think J.D. really has that race locked down. I have a lot to say about Tim Ryan's candidacy, but I think J.D. really hit his stride in the past few months. He's been a lot stronger on the campaign trail than I anticipated. And Tim Ryan, again, and this is kind of a pattern you're seeing, you look at these polls, you look at Georgia, you look at Ohio, you look at Pennsylvania, you look at Nevada, you

These Democrats just cannot really break 46, 47, 48 percent in the polls. And that is, like I said, you do not want to be there as an incumbent. No, no. And I'm going to make this prediction right now. Our last guest, David Drucker, does not like making predictions. I will. I think Tim Ryan loses by eight to 10 points when it all happens on election night. I just don't I don't think it's that close when it's all said and done.

Yeah, I mean, listen, is Tim Ryan inordinately strong for a Democrat in Ohio? Maybe, but it's just such an uphill climb. And, you know, I really think that if J.D. – you know, I'm like David. I've been very humbled in the past few cycles, so I try not to make any predictions. But I will say that if Ryan doesn't get within five points, I think –

there really should be some soul searching on the Democratic side on why exactly they bought into the hype. And right now, if you're looking just at the numbers, J.D.'s on track to win by at least five to eight. If he does better than eight, then he's beating Trump. Well, let me ask you this. I mean, I want to go back to Tim Ryan for a minute because, you know, I follow him on Twitter and I just find him to be an annoying human being. And the fact that

He likes to pretend he's this moderate, and the guy votes literally 100% with Biden. So what makes somebody like Tim Ryan think they are a moderate? I mean, a moderate would be probably 70% along with the president, right? We could give somebody that tag, 60%, 70% with whoever the party president is. I mean, there's no Democrat like that, and it's definitely not him. I mean, he's 100%. So how does anybody fall for this line that he's a moderate, and he's been at, what, Washington 20 years? Yeah.

Right. Yeah. No, I that's such a that's such an important point. And it's a point that I make often when I'm talking to political operatives or other candidates or whoever, when I'm on the road or in D.C. where, you know, imagine a race, a competitive race. Let's think for a second that Ohio competitive or imagine Georgia or Pennsylvania or wherever. Imagine a race for the Democrat who's running.

and say, I broke in with party leadership on critical votes, maybe similar to Joe Manchin or even Kyrsten Sinema, and say, yeah, exactly. I mean, these races would be so, so different if they didn't have that 100% with Pelosi and Biden line attached to their name. And it really is...

blows my mind that none of these democrats whether it's in a competitive house race whether it's in a competitive senate race anyone who had the opportunity to not vote with biden on all sorts of legislation or vote closely on all sorts of legislation none of them took the opportunity to do so knowing that they were running for re-election or running for senate it's really it's

defy the explanation. I understand they have a lot of pressure from party leadership, but at the end of the day, especially if you're someone like Tim Ryan, Tim Ryan's not running for re-election in the House. He got redistricted out. He knew he was getting redistricted out. He's the only way to stand politics is running for Senate. And what does he do? He votes for Biden close to 100% of the time. And I agree. His

his entire message is about how I'm a moderate. I'm not really a Democrat. Look, I challenge Pelosi, blah, blah, blah. But when push came to shove, you didn't do anything different than AOC. Actually, AOC votes with Pelosi less than Tim Ryan, if you can believe. All right, excuse me. AOC votes with Pelosi less than Tim Ryan, if you can believe. Oh, I believe it. No, I mean, I believe it. And I just think that's one of the cons of politics today. And

one other day when we have you on the show, we just need to talk 30 minutes on what's described as a moderate now. People like to throw that tag out, but I don't know what that word means anymore. It's really interesting. For example, I hear a lot in Utah that Mitt Romney's a moderate. I think he voted like 85 or 86% of the time with Trump. I don't know how that makes you a moderate, either that you just think Trump as a human being is not a good guy. That doesn't make you a moderate, right? That just makes you having a judgment on somebody. Um,

So tell me about the Fetterman debate. I'm sure you watched it. Yeah, that was painful. I blame people around Fetterman for putting him in that position. I cannot believe no one had the good sense to say after that, we, you know, we probably need to get behind someone else. I mean, a stroke is a very serious item. Most of us have family members who've had strokes. I don't know any good result of a stroke a lot of times.

And it was interesting watching, again, Twitter's not real world, but it's an interesting place to find your blue checkmark reporters who think they are the world just make excuses for him. I mean, it was just bad. There's no way to describe it other than it was just bad and embarrassing. And I felt horrible for him as a human being.

Yeah, I mean, obviously I had the exact same reaction as you, and I think, frankly, everyone watched that debate. I mean, it was the worst debate in American history. It was vaguely disturbing, frankly. It was an unmitigated disaster for the Spetterman camp. I mean, you raise a really good question. I mean, I...

He was absolutely worse than I anticipated him to be, and I was 100% prepared to say it's not as bad. I think people are probably making too much out of this. If he was remotely coherent, I said that in 2020, Biden...

did not seem as bad as he does today in those debates. There was no kill shot from Trump where he could say, look, you don't even know where you are right now. And Biden held his own in those 2020 debates. And that's probably part of the reason why he was elected president. You cannot say, and like I said, I was prepared to say that about Federmann. So listen, yeah, he sounds bumpy, but did he get the job done? Yes. That's not what happened in that debate. A completely unmitigated disaster. I mean, it was shocking. I was watching it.

I was listening to it on a drive home in Michigan, and I mean, I was gaffed. I mean, I couldn't believe that, like you said, they put him out there like that. And the reaction to it is so frustrating and maddening from the media. The line is,

the worse that Fetterman looks, the more brave and important of a moment it was for him and for the country. And it's just ludicrous. There's nothing brave about it. I mean, it's just such ludicrous what they're pushing it. Exactly. There's nothing brave about it. It raises all sorts of questions about his condition. I mean, I'm not prepared to say that he's...

cogent of what's going on. I mean, I know that that might sound cool or whatever. I don't think it is, but we were told before this debate that his only problem was the inability to basically turn box into words, right? Right. That is a potential stroke. Um, that's potential damage people can, can have after a stroke. Um,

I don't think that's all that there is at this point. And I don't see how anyone... Again, no one... We all have to act on the exact same information. He doesn't release his medical records. You know, when the media trots out supposed experts saying, oh, no, no, it's actually really common, they're making the same guesses that you and I are. Fine, they have a medical degree, but I'm sorry. They're...

There was a real lack of coherence there. And like I said, the maddening thing was just so much reaction from the press being like, well, you know, the worse he is, the more important it was for him to go up there. And I just I'm sorry. I mean, it just is. Well, they they get to create a lot of these blue checkmark reporters keep really showing in 2022 just what literally happens.

what hacks they are i mean they are pushing an agenda and you know it's sort of like the economy you know you keep hearing people on twitter saying i can't believe people are going to put democracy in danger because gas prices went up 25 cents a gallon well first they didn't go up 25 cents a gallon they've gone up a couple bucks right and so it goes the old line are you going to believe me or your lion eyes right i mean that's what it is people know what they're paying and it's the same thing after you know i know today it was put out by chuck ross um

after the first post-debate poll, undecided split for odds, they're for odds 64 to 36. So obviously they have their own eyes as well. And, you know, and it's just amazing. As we wrap up here and we want to have you on again soon, and I do want to talk with you about what is the definition of a moderate? I'm trying to figure that one out still. What is the race we should be looking for on the East Coast that if it goes to

Just watch out. There is somewhat of a wave coming. I'm not going to say it's a huge one. I think two things. You've got Connecticut 5, where you have a Republican, a black Republican, very impressive guy, tied, if not leading by one point, over...

Democratic incumbent. And if I don't think Republicans have elected a statewide representative or excuse me, have represented a Democrat in a

for Congress in maybe 15 to 20 years. That splits, I think, is a good chance. That bodes very well for Republicans. And then in New York, House race. Unfortunately, there's not like a big Senate race. But these are important. Sean Patrick Maloney seats in New York. He's the head of the DCCC, so that's the Democratic House campaign arm.

This is like a Biden plus 10 plus 15 district. If that's what we could easily be looking at Republicans winning 40 plus seats. These are these are seats that were not supposed to go red this cycle, but they're looking increasingly competitive. Amazing. Well, Joe Simonson from the Free Bacon, he is their investigative reporter and you can find him on Twitter at says Simonson. That's very cute.

I am Chuck Warren, your host of Breaking Battleground. You can find us on social media at LinkedIn, Facebook at Breaking Battlegrounds and of course on Twitter, Breaking underscore Battle. Joe, thanks a million. I look forward to having you back on to talk about what the heck a moderate is. Thank you. Stay in touch. Appreciate you. Folks, have a great weekend.