Low Propensity Voters: Who Are They and How Will They Vote? (w/ Amy Walter) 01:08:20

Welcome to this edition of The Campaign Managers. I'm Kellyanne Conway, joined by David Plouffe. We have a very special guest today. I know David and I are so excited to have her and her amazing insights. Amy Walter, very well-respected political analyst. You see her on TV constantly, but most importantly, those of us who follow politics regularly

constantly read and seek out Amy's opinion regularly. Amy Walter is publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report, and she's host of her very own podcast, The Odd Years. We're very happy that she's taken time today to join David Plouffe and me on our own podcast. And I have to say, Amy, as an old person, I remember meeting Charlie Cook

probably 35 or 38 years ago, early on in the Cook Political Report. And it was like my kids meeting Mickey Mouse in Disney World. I was super excited. But what you've been able to do with your career and running through the numbers, I

I guess one question I would have, and then we'll throw it over to David, is there's a lot of talk of these low propensity voters. There was an article recently in a poll that if everybody in the country voted, Donald Trump would beat Joe Biden, which is a little bit of a shift from the fact that.

that the Democratic presidential nominees have won the popular vote for the last several cycles. So I wanted to talk about that. And then, of course, there's a recent Washington Post article called, you know, the 2024 deciders. And if you can comment, agree, disagree, expand, contract on the following. Washington Post says 64% of people polled in swing states were defined as, quote, the deciders. Who are they? They fit in one or more categories. They voted in only one of the two last presidential contests.

They are ages 18 to 25, the youngest of the young, registered to vote since 2022 only, and then switched their support from 2016 to 2020. And then they claim seven out of the 10 deciders are not satisfied with some people called double haters. I like to say double doubters because hater sounds a little...

severe, even in politics. Curious about your view of the low propensity voters, how much we should care about popular vote polls versus swing state polls, and just to get inside the capacious brain of Amy Walter. Capacious. I don't think that's ever been attached to me. So thank you for that. I'm glad to be talking to you both and really interested to hear your

how you all are sizing this race up too. And in fact, Kellyanne, that's sort of my question back at you about these low propensity voters, because it seems like every four years we come up with a new group of swing voters, right? That we suddenly discover. And some of it is true. It's because every four years the issues are different. Typically the candidates are different and the environment's different. And so different kinds of people are gonna show up and sort of have more sway.

It seems to me that these low propensity voters have long been Donald Trump voters. And I think that's why our polling in 2016 and 2020 tended to miss

the strength of Trump or how well he would do in some of these states, because the kinds of people that polling was picking up were the people who were more regularly engaged voters, which is why, you know, Democrats did really well in 2018. And they did better than they should have in 2022. But when we and when we look at the polls of 2016 and 2020,

Republicans certainly outperform. So I think there's always been an element of that, that Trump is able to bring out

that aren't typically engaged in politics. Maybe they're younger, maybe they hadn't voted before. They seem to span a broader swath of the electorate than many assumed, which was that, oh, these are low propensity white non-college voters, right? These are guys in the upper Midwest who are sort of checked out of politics, right?

Alienated from institutions, feel forgotten, if not invisible. Exactly. And what we're coming to find is there are folks who fit that description, but not only all across the country, but across countries.

race and background. And the one thing we do know, and again, going back to both of you guys, just coming up in politics, the one thing that always seemed to benefit Republicans was off your elections, they would do better because, well, their voters were overwhelmingly white and more highly educated and wealthier. And those are the folks that would turn up

and vote in midterm elections. And then the Democratic voters would show up in the presidential years. They were younger. It was more diverse electorate. Maybe they were more blue collar. And in fact, I just remember so clearly, you know, the difference between when we went from what the Democratic or Republican parties were to what they are now. In 2006, Democrats had an awesome election, right? They flipped the House that year, flipped the Senate.

But they didn't win in some places that we thought were really, really competitive. And I thought we'd see some of those places flip like suburban Philadelphia, suburban Chicago, suburban Columbus, Ohio, Texas.

None of the Connecticut, the cliches still held on in 2006. So those areas were still Republican. Democrats were still winning in the like rural southwest Ohio and in Indiana and in Evansville. And by 2008,

Well, it was changing a little bit, but by 2018, it broke open. And so that's, I think, what we're seeing is those, quote unquote, higher propensity voters who are in those suburban areas. They show up, they turn out. That helps Democrats in those areas and in low turnout elections. But when you turn up the volume, that tends to help Trump and notably really just helping Trump.

You don't see them showing up for Republicans across the board yet. Right.

Well, Amy, I mean, it's such a smart assessment and a reminder that politics is not static because I certainly spent a lot of my time running races where we were sometimes wholly dependent on turnout of tough to turn out voters. And it looks like Biden would love to have a race where 135 to 140 million people vote as opposed to 160. It's hard for me to get my arms around that, but that's where we are. I'm curious. And Amy, you and I, it's so exciting to talk to you when I go back to talking about House and Senate races like before big data and smartphones and when we just did television ads.

And so excited that you're doing battleground state polls under your leadership at the Cook Political Report. I think Kelly and I have talked about this. There's, you know, national polls have their value, I guess, but it's limited. And so for you to really focus your brain and your team's expertise on these states is important. I'm curious, your polls that you released today,

I think are consistent in what we're seeing in other data, which is Biden stronger in the upper Midwest than he is in the four Southwest and Southern states. And I'm just curious, as you look at the data, uh,

Do you see a pathway back for Biden for those, you know, basically from North Carolina to Arizona with Nevada and Georgia thrown in becoming more competitive? Because even though it's early, it's clear that there's a difference in the behavior of those states. And of course, it's fascinating because those states are the least diverse. So Biden doing better in states where he's holding on to his white vote more so than... Shorter version white. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, it is. It's like...

You know, David, if we had talked in 2012 and we said, well, where do you think Democrats will do better? In the fast-growing, diversifying states or in the not fast-growing, older, whiter parts? And you wouldn't even hesitate to tell us that it would be in the diversifying, fast-growing parts of the country. And that's not the case. To me, what really stuck out in our polls about the difference between

uh, Trump Biden in those Sunbelt versus the upper Midwest. One, you really, the, the, uh, democratic base is, is not solidified behind Biden yet in those Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, especially, you know, he's only getting like

80, 83 percent of the Democratic vote. Right. So and Trump's getting all of the Republican vote. So he has shored up his base in a way that Biden hasn't in those states. And Biden shored up his base much more in those Midwestern states. To me, this is the central question is, are these voters who right now are either

sitting in RFK, sitting in undecided or soft Trump supporters, many of whom Kellyanne pointed out they're younger, they're voters of color. How malleable are they? And I think they will fall into the following one. Are they going to just show up at all? So that's the problem with low propensity voters. They got to feel that there's a reason for them to show up. And if they don't see it, they'll just stay home. Yeah.

The second is what is really driving them? It's pretty clear that the economy is I mean, it's the whole ballgame. It makes a whole lot of sense given where we are with where inflation is and how frustrated people are.

with the cost of living, that that's driving everything. But it's also clear that there are other issues out there that are important to these voters, abortion access being one of them. So, you know, how that debate evolves, I think is important. But just if you just sort of this is my rule of thumb that I've been using for these past, especially, you know,

two elections with Trump on the ballot is I really try to stay away from talking about the margin and really look at the vote share. Right. Because, you know, you telling me that somebody's up five or four or seven, that's fine. But like, you could be up seven and your candidates at 38 and my candidates at 30, right? Like, that's not telling me anything.

It's such an important point because Biden's, you know, often not at 45% anywhere. Neither of them is really 50. I think some recent swing state polls have Trump maybe at 50 in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, some combination thereof. But Amy, I think as, as we're all tacticians here, we're practitioners and I don't want to lose this moment. I feel that we don't know what would motivate these folks to the polls. We do see their issue set. That's kind of obvious, but to me,

Unless and until they feel compelled to participate, I think they could easily be what I've for years referred to as conscientious objectors. These are people who are not voting, not because they're not paying attention to politics, apathetic people.

They're not voting because they are paying attention to politics and they don't want to reward Washington. They don't want to participate in this. I'm 57 years old. My two grandmothers were born before women had the right to vote. They were born in 1908 and 1914, and their six daughters and son between the two of them knew that. And the idea, none of them were particularly political, but the idea that

that you would say you weren't going to vote. I get goosebumps even letting it spill out of my mouth. Of course you were going to vote. Women didn't even have the right to vote until 1920. And the idea that you wouldn't vote meant you were lazy, disrespectful of the military or our leaders' sacrifices or not really caring who's running the school system or what our tax rate is or abortion or whatever the case is. Now I feel people are kind of proud to say,

I'm not going to vote. And it's a deliberate conscious choice. Do you think that's overstated? Is it enough of the electorate to swing it in a certain state? Really trying to dig into these low propensity. They're not low information. I don't like reading that. I think that's a really great, I think there are two, there are so many different kinds of voters. And you know who, who's I reading about that just did a deep dive into,

Into this. I don't know if it was Gallup or Pew or somebody asking them specifically, OK, when you say you're not interested in voting or what is it? And some of them are honest enough and they're like, I just don't know enough about it. Right. Like, I just don't feel adequately prepared to.

And honestly, you know, if you are going into, gosh, in a state like California and you look at that ballot and there are 756 ballot initiatives, right? And you're like superintendent of the county water board. You're like, I don't know what this is. Like, do I just check? Right. So even incredibly well-educated people are...

put off by the amount that's on a ballot. But I think to your point, it is, we have the big difference. I think this, these devices in our hands are the big differentiators here, which we aren't getting our information from the same places. We are not trusting information that we do get, or we're trusting some information too much. And so there's not,

There's not a national narrative, which I think makes this also very challenging to have that same conversation about why it's important to vote. And it's a lot easier. I've been telling consultants this for years, especially the ones who would be moaned like, oh, it's so terrible and everything's so negative and everything's terrible. And I said, well, I've been watching campaign ads now for 30 years. I've been watching what you guys have been doing. You've been telling voters that.

for years that Washington's terrible. Yeah, they're all they're all crooks. They're, it's a, it's just a terrible, awful place filled with awful people, you're gonna go in and fix it. And then guess what, they've come to believe you. And they think everybody who runs is terrible. Nothing's gonna get done. Nothing's gonna get fixed. It's like,

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David and I worked for two candidates, Obama and Trump, who really were different. They were outsiders. And so the country all of a sudden was ready for that outsider insurgent that they pretended they wanted all along, even though we had a Bush or a Clinton on the national ticket from 1980 to what, 2000, 2000.

2004 without interruption. And so I think that politicians are selling change and fixing the problems. But we, the people also say, I want someone new. I want change in choice and options of revolution. But I'm curious to hear what David says about all that. Yeah, I'm curious, Amy. So, you know, I think it's undeniable that Trump has a slight advantage now. Biden can win this race. And I say that largely, even less around the polls. It's just right now,

If you look at those seven states, Trump's stronger in all of them. Biden, obviously, doing better in the North Midwest. Now, maybe the debate will change that. But I do think there's a question for you, which is Trump's lead. And I agree with you. Like, I don't give a shit about a poll that's 46-42. Like, I want to know who's the other 12. What are they going to do? Right. That's what matters. And so.

I think for Trump to get to a win number, no matter what the third party vote is, he clearly is going to be reliant on some of these younger, diverse people with either very sporadic or no voting history. And I know when I've been relying on that, it makes you super nervous. Right. And you've got a race where a lot of Americans are dissatisfied with their two choices. They wish there was new blood. Right.

And, you know, I think for a lot of these young voters, particularly of color, they're going to have uncles and aunts and parents and grandparents, you know, saying you don't vote for Trump now. Maybe for some of them, that'll be a motivation.

But I do think there's a pretty high degree of difficulty for Trump here. And so my question is, on days as a Democrat where I might say, wow, this is going to require almost a Herculean set of favorable things to happen, Biden dominating debates and turnout being very low. But you look at it and you, well, Trump, I think, does have a pretty high degree of difficulty to turn what looks like a voting preference intention in a poll into actual vote.

And the other thing, Kellyanne, you're right. There's voters out there, young voters in particular, who say the system doesn't work. It's completely rigged. Why would I even bother? So maybe in a poll, I say I'd vote for Trump. And by the way, it's why I think Trump is smart, finally, to embrace early vote and vote by mail, understanding that those types of voters that he has to execute on, you've got to give multiple ways to get them to the poll, right? It's the only way I've learned anyway. So I just would love your thoughts on that. Yeah.

Is this race a little bit closer than it would seem just given this pile of voters that Trump has to actually get to the polls? I mean, I think about this a lot. And if I if we had all been living like on us in outer space on one of those, I don't know,

what do they call those space stations we're in a space station and we had no contact with earth for like five years okay and we and what i told you was hey look um

The incumbent president is running for reelection. His job approval rating is around 38 percent. Inflation is the highest it's been since Jimmy Carter. And right now he's he's trailing his opponent in all the major swing states. And it is basically tied. And you can this person winning to go.

No effing way. Right, right, right. There's no way you're going to win. You're at 38% with the highest inflation since the 70s. You cannot possibly win. And then you go, okay, well then – and again, if I –

Let's go back to 2020. You have an incumbent president, right? He's been impeached. We're in the middle of a once in a lifetime pandemic where a majority of the voters are giving him negative job, you know, approval ratings. Can he win? Absolutely not. Right. So these things like on paper, it's almost impossible to believe that either one of those incumbents,

could win. So I think we're in two things, as you guys both know, which is you've got 80-ish percent of the electorate that is not, they're just not budging. I mean, that to me is such the big difference between the days that you and that all of us started doing politics where, you know, it's not like, I guess the biggest landslide that I witnessed, I guess 96 was something of a landslide, right? Like it was not ever close. Yeah.

there's no you know we didn't grow up in the era where you know you had at least i didn't but and that you guys are my age but you know we weren't around for the 1964 and the i was alive but i wasn't practicing politics in 1980 or 1984. so we're not going back to that what's what's amazing to me david is just that since obama in 2008 the number of states that have flipped

from Dem to Republican in the electoral college is smaller than at any time in American history, like fewer states than at any point in American history. So our country is as settled into its partisanship as ever, that humongous, what we would think of as earth shattering events do not have the capacity to move voters the way that they once did. And so you kind of lock those folks in and we are in trench warfare battling over the

These group of voters that are motivated, you guys, we've all been trying to get at that, is what are they motivated the most by? And if what you are motivated by, I think, most undecided voters and the reason they're undecided or undeclared or however we're going to call them, is that they're

They're kind of normal and they don't wake up every day and put on a jersey that is red or blue. And they they like go through their lives and they have they're pretty logical. And they say things like, well, I don't know. I'm worried about this. Who's going to fix this for me? And then you have to answer that question for them.

And then that's it. There we go. It doesn't have to be that complicated. And they do get turned off because they see that both sides have failed them. And so it's easier to check out there. I do think if you are, you know, the where what's been interesting in watching Trump and the

the sort of conversation around him and his political strategy over time is, you know, we thought, we thought about swing voters as those suburban voters who it's true. I don't think they're coming. They're not coming back. I think they are now kind of firmly in the democratic camp. So trying to win back those voters doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Now it's a question of, are you really,

going to be able to get in Michigan, could he get 15% of the Black vote? Like, wow, wouldn't that be double, right? I think he got like seven or eight. Easily. That's a group of swing voters no one saw coming. And I don't think every Republican nominee for president who isn't Donald Trump would have been able to do that. There's no evidence Nikki Haley or

or Ron DeSantis or any of the rest of them could have done that. And Amy, I wanted to talk about polling because David and I, like you, are polling aficionados. What a big resume filler, folks. And I'm very concerned that the forgotten man, forgotten woman that Trump talks about become forgotten in all the polling. And polls have a way of distorting reality, especially when they come from the nonpartisan media outlets or academic institutions that

And you do say, and you're one of the more responsible ones, no doubt, but you do say, as others have observed, Amy, that polls were wrong. They undercounted the strength of Trump in 2016 and 2020. And then we talk about it retrospectively, and that's not fair. It has to be a way to include these people from the beginning. And I've often been asked by the media, especially in 2016, but I hear it now too,

I was with President Trump on his birthday and he did this big thing in West Palm Beach, you know, thousands of people there and he's having a good time, etc. The media will be like, well, we see all the people, but will they vote? No, they stand in the pouring rain or the bleeding sun for days at a time, but they're not going to vote. So, of course, they are. I'm concerned that ABC News, Washington Post put out a poll.

That came out of the field in late October 2020 that showed Joe Biden beating Donald Trump in Wisconsin by 17 points. That's never going to be true, nor is it true that Donald Trump's beating Joe Biden by 17 points. That's why it's Wisconsin. It's the swingiest of swing states. So I'm very concerned because it does impact –

and turnout. And it's just, it's just a lie. So what do we do? If I could just, if I could, Jamie, just to just add to Kellyanne's point, I'm just curious as you, you now conducting your own polling in these states, you obviously, as you always do analyze every poll out there,

Where do you think there could be some polling error? And that can be both vote share, turnout, third party. I'm just curious, like what keeps you up at night and like, are we properly tracking this? Every year we think like, well, I start with this place, which is I don't think...

polling can capture what we want it to capture. Or in other words, it is not, even after all of the work that pollsters have done, and I think the reputable ones, okay, they have worked very hard to make this work, to try to get as representative of the sample possible, to try to find as many ways possible to pick up those people who

who aren't going to participate in polls. And, you know, I remember right after 2020, Tony Fabrizio and John Anzalone, so Biden's pollster, Trump's pollster, you know, they were doing work for the Wall Street Journal and they both were sort of sharing the things that they had been doing in their own campaigns about here are the ways that we tried to get as representative sample. I think a lot of folks have been doing that and doing that smartly. But

If indeed it's going to come down to seven states, all of those states being decided by three points or less, no poll is going to be able to capture that properly, right? And so either you just assume, look, this thing is coming down to six or seven states and just wake me up in October and then we'll see who, you know, there'll be a whole bunch of other factors, but like two to three points, right?

With a margin of error in these polls of three or four points, you are going to be wrong. That'll never equal 17 points. Exactly. I mean, that nobody should be quoting those polls just because they like them. And I was a big critic, Amy and David, as you both know, in 2022 of what I called overly rosy, sunny polling on the Republican side. Big red wave. Everyone's winning.

Tiffany Smiley is going to defeat the decidedly non-smiley Patty Mary in Washington State. Mary won by double digits. She's the longest serving. Yeah. I mean, it's like it's that's all wishful thinking. And there are people who made millions of dollars convincing donors. Oh, my God, I'm the one showing everybody's ahead. Look, we all like to see a scale three pounds lighter than it is. We just like to see the number, even if we know it's wrong.

We need to not, we like, you know, if we're on vacation, it's going to rain. We love to see that it's actually going to be sunny. We love this wishful thinking thing, but it's really dangerous in depressing turnout among these low propensity, last minute swing voters. And I worry about it. You know what else I think is going to be really important to that point? We talk about it a lot here because we spend it.

so much of our time covering down ballot races. And I do think what we're talking about, what the media is talking about going into October is going to matter a lot, especially for the Senate and House races. I think in 2016, for example, when you look at how many districts that Hillary won, but the Republican House candidate also won. I think there were a lot of voters who said, look, Hillary's already going to win. So, yeah,

I just want to I don't really like Trump, but I do want to see a Republican House. This Republican House member is kind of more my cup of tea. I'm going to vote for the Republican. And the checks and balances thing. Exactly. Yeah. And so I think you're going to that could be a very big factor, especially if you're thinking about a place like.

Maryland, you're Larry Hogan and you're like, I'm running as the, I got to try to win in a state that Biden won by 30 points. So how do I do that? Now I'm going to be independent and I'm not, I'm your old school Republican, not your Trump Republican. But the more that it looks like Trump's going to win, that is a bigger risk for voters, right? To say, man, Trump's president and he

There's going to be even more Republicans in the Senate. I don't know. That's too right. If it's that Biden's going to win and maybe he's this independent voice in the Senate, I could get on board with that. So we may even see that. We haven't seen it in the last two presidentials where the Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona Senate races go a different way than the presidential race.

But to that point, you have the two candidates now are more disliked or, you know, they both are deeply disliked and voters seemingly more frustrated about their choices, even than they were in 2016 and 2020 and wanting a check and balance and the race being very close. I don't know. Maybe we could see more of a split ticket than we've seen in some time. So so what the media is talking about, I do think,

To your point, I do think it matters. It is, we could say till our faces are blue, like it's too close to call, but everybody's publishing numbers. People want to, yeah, people want to see what they want to see. I'm definitely one of those people on vacation when I'm like, 70% chance of rain. Right. It's only 80%. There's 20%. Yeah. It's a 30% chance it's not.

I'm Walter Masterson. And I'm Maximilian Clark. And we're basically journalists. No, no we're not. Well, we do travel across America and interview people. Yeah, using God to solve murders, and it's proven communication. Tell me everything about that. But we also dress up like extremists and sneak into their protests. I care about children. That is why I...

That's why I pay my court-mandated child support. Well, that's undercover journalism. Okay, and that time we pretended to be Trump's legal team during the indictment? He considers us all family. That's why he's always asking us for money. Okay, so we are not journalists. We're TikTok comedians asking questions real journalists are too smart to ask. Bullshit!

But we also talk to real experts and scientists and smart people and stuff. And make fun of them. Yeah, I guess that's why we named our show We Are Not Journalists. Because we're better. We have a podcast. A podcast that's available on whatever podcast app you use to get your podcasts. Podcasts. Podcasts. Podcasts.

So, Amy, let's dig into these Senate races because your data in your battleground polls captured this. I think most of the polling, to me, it's fascinating. Kellyanne and I have talked about it. We'll probably talk about it every episode. I mean, again, it's just polls and it's June. But, you know, you have the difference between Democratic Senate candidates and Biden in some cases, five, six, eight points. Same thing on the Republican side. And so as you think about that and look at it, I mean, I think, you know, maybe that just continues to your point. Maybe we're going to see a fascinating and quite unusual difference.

If you're the Biden campaign, it gives you some optimism. You're like, well, they are voting Democratic for Senate. Right. So we know who they are. That's our base right there. We'll get them back. But, you know, so I'm just curious how you think about that, because I think a lot of the voters we talked about in the beginning are.

some of these younger, you know, infrequent voters, voters of color, they are choosing right now in polls and polls aren't reality. They're choosing Democratic Senate candidates, but they're not choosing Biden. So how do you think about that? Because to me, this could be the key to the whole thing is,

Can he, you know, narrow that gap between him and Rosen, you know, and him and Casey and him and Baldwin, which is quite... Now, I don't want to overstate it. It's not like those Democratic Senate candidates are like 55. You know, they're in the high 40s. They're up at 48, 48. Yeah. You know, I thought about that too, which is, gosh, if Bob Casey is getting...

49%, 48%, and Tammy Baldwin's at 48, 49%. Isn't that basically, that's where Joe Biden should be. That's a Democratic base vote right there. And which would also make sense, that's where he was in 2020. Right? Like,

And yet he's not. The other thing that was true, and this goes to my point about I made earlier about the vote share and the margin. Part of the reason the margin looks so big is nobody really knows who these Republicans are. And these Republicans are going to hit a Trump number. Right. So they're not going to they're not, you know, that's going to close. The Senate candidate in Wisconsin was like at 42 percent. He's not going to be at 42 percent. Right. Right.

He will be now. Could he be a point or so lower than Trump? Sure. But he's going to be at 46, 47. So, yeah.

Once you sort of mind for that, the big gap is definitely between the Republican and Trump, much more so than Biden and the Democrat, right? Like those guys, that is the big gap. But it's really, as I said, the way I think about it is either which number do you want to be right? That really, at the end of the day,

the fact that those democratic Senate candidates are getting the Democrats to come home is really where Biden's going to end up. And this is going to be like it was in 2020, a 49, 48, 50, 48 race in those three States. And boom, we just gotta, just gotta bring them along. We gotta get them back on board. But if you're Bob Casey, right?

How tied do you want to be to Biden? Exactly. Right. Like you're like, I don't know that I want to give you all my voters. Like these people like me. It doesn't seem like Fetterman is very reliable for Biden either. He's pretty critical of the party. It is fascinating. Yeah. I mean, if you if you are obviously if you're John Tester,

Your whole mojo has to be, I'm not Joe Biden. That makes sense. He's got to outperform Biden. Then why does he vote with him 93, 94% of the time? Well, yeah, that's the, he'll, he'll say what I watched his debate performance. I'll say, well, I disagree with him here. I voted there, but it's, it's, he has a challenge.

that is different than, 'cause I think we can all agree, Montana and Ohio, West Virginia sort of fit in a different category. And really what we're talking about in my mind is can Democrats

get into a situation where they lose the Senate, but it's two seats. Right. Or three seats versus it's a 55, 45. Yeah. Right. Right. And that's where we get to the question of, you know, who really runs the Senate and then the Biden era, it's been Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. And if Trump wins, it could be, you know, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins running the Senate.

what comes through the Senate, right? If it's that narrow. Yeah. If it's that narrow. Yeah. I'm curious, Amy, I saw you spoke about this recently because the only thing that matters in a presidential race in the pursuit of 207 electoral votes is battleground states, right? Yeah. But you mentioned that as it relates to the House and Senate, you mentioned Ohio and Montana, what Biden and Trump do in the other 43 states does matter. And I want to speak about the House because for the Democrats to retake the House,

obviously it's not solely based on New York and California, but they play an outsized role. And kind of what are you seeing there? Because obviously, you know, the underperformance in New York in 2022, as much as the election, I think on the whole was very good for Democrats. That was kind of a catastrophic situation there. What are you seeing in the non-battleground states in terms of the presidential from a wins, you know, kind of the tailwinds, headwinds perspective? It's not everything we've seen. And this makes a whole lot of sense, right? Yeah.

It is true that each state has its uniqueness and a lot of it driven by demographics. But the way I'm looking at this, I'm curious if you guys see it this way too, but okay. We just, again, all the caveats we made about polls. Right now, if this race is tied nationally, that's a five-point shift to the right from where it was in 2020. So now start shifting every state at least five points.

And now that's why a state like Virginia that Biden carried by 10, I don't think it's tied, but could it be, you know, Fabrizio had it at four points or McLaughlin, one of them had four points. But that sounds, you know, that I think Hillary won it by six or so points. I mean, in fact, if you start shifting everything to the right by that amount,

The map looks a lot more like the Hillary Clinton map than it does the 2020 map. Well, the race feels like 2016 in many ways. That's exactly right. So it looks like 2016 right now, which means that even in California and New York, the numbers aren't the 2020 California and New York numbers. Yeah.

Right. So when we say, oh, this is a this is a district that Biden won by 14. Well, he's not winning it by 14 right now. So he's winning by eight, let's say, or six. Or if Biden won it by six, now he's winning it by one. Now that is a now that's a toss up district that should be an easier seat for Dems to win. And that's where I think, you know. Yeah. So there are some of these New York districts where it is true, even if on a bad night.

The Republican is still going to have to outperform Trump by six, seven, eight points. All right. That's not going to happen. But remember, the California districts Democrats are trying to flip, Central Valley. David, you know those when you're at DCCC. We probably were always talking about the Central Valley and those Latino voters there. Yeah.

They're not acting that different from the Latino voters we're seeing in other parts of the country who are just they're not sold on going back to Biden. Same as you said. So I just wanted to level set for the audience to what we're talking about with the House and the Senate, if I may, just quickly. I see seven or eight Senate seats all held by Democrats now. Two are open. Three are open. Excuse me. West Virginia, Michigan, Arizona.

And just as you said, Amy Walter, maybe the Democratic Party has been controlled in the Senate by Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin of West Virginia. But in my mind's eye, and I know them both well, respect their public service, they were both kind of forced to resign or face somewhat certain defeat, particularly Manchin. And, you know, I don't know that there's space in this Democratic Party, in this Democratic-controlled Senate for the, quote, moderate unifying party.

diverge from the unanimity that's expected of everyone, the fealty and unanimity. So they're out. Michigan, Sabino's retired. But I say this because I'm looking at Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia. These are eight Senate seats that are currently held by Democrats. I think West Virginia is all but gone. That'll be Republican. Arizona, there's a two-way race now. But I say this just because as a Republican, I don't like

And I have said this publicly and I'm going to say it here on the podcast. I don't like that the Republican candidates, many of whom are very serious people, successful business people, maybe down ballot politicians in their states, they're underperforming Trump massively. So,

David looks at it as the Democratic Senate candidates overperforming Biden. That's true. On my side, I'm saying, well, why are you underperforming Trump? I thought Trump was to blame for 2022. Turns out he's the guy that you're relying on his energy and enthusiasm to pull you all over. And I have to tell these candidates in no uncertain terms, go run your own races. Do what Donald Trump does. You get his endorsement, you fall asleep. You're playing it safe. You're waiting for the lion to roar on every single issue and then you'll follow. No. No.

These Senate races are so well-funded. The candidates become so well-known, like mini presidential races in their own states. They say some of these races will be a hundred million dollar race. At least. So start behaving like this. And I feel there's way too much.

of this boulder on the shoulder of Trump. Like they're just saying, well, you know, this will tighten up. And I think Steve Daines and his ED, executive director, Jason Tillman, have done a great job in recruiting great candidates. But I don't like that some of these candidates are 42, 43, even 44, if Trump's at 48, 49 in the state right now. So that's a concern. I just wanted to say, see what the two of you think. Control of Congress, 22 toss-up seats, it sounds like. Amy, I want your comment on this. 22 toss-up seats, 11 are currently held by Republican...

11 held by Democrat. But here's what's important. Biden won 16 out of the 22 toss-up seats in 2020, five of them by double digits. I mean, remarkably, Republicans won. He won by double digits. Republican won. I think a bunch of them were incumbents, so that helps. On the other hand, Trump won four of the toss-up seats.

one of which is GOP held California 41 remaining three are Democrat held Maine two which is important the way they split their electoral votes in Maine Pennsylvania eight Wisconsin excuse me Washington three but I know David shares my curiosity about getting into your brain about these House and Senate seats too because apart from just the polling numbers what do you see really happening I mean could the Republicans sweep are we going to have divided government again

This one feels so much like... David, were you at the DCCC in 2000? Oh, yeah. The Gore Bush year. Yeah. Yeah. We basically, I think, we made it... It was the same number of seats. You needed four seats. Five. We won one. And we lost the House by like 200 votes cumulative across the districts. It was gut-wrenching. It feels kind of like that where...

You know, look, we live in an era now where you're right. There's all politics is local, but it's really nationalized. And so the idea that in you could have Republicans win the Senate, win the White House and not win the House feels weird. Right. You're like, how is that possible? Usually there's enough of a breeze to get that number of seats. But then to your point, OK, but where Republicans have to hold are in states that aren't

in the traditional swing states, right? They're not in Pennsylvania and Arizona and Nevada, et cetera. In fact, you know, it's, it is, it's the California and California, Oregon, New York, and Ohio, where there are going to be some really critical battles in,

So some of this is just literally hand-to-hand combat and who's doing the better job in these races, which is what 2000 felt like. Right. My recollection of it was there were just some woulda, coulda, shoulda in these races, right? The wrong candidate got out of the primary. Somebody had a last-minute disaster, right?

An incumbent asleep at the switch. Exactly. Just like those little things get you here, there. So I really do think it's a toss up. The other way to think about it, though, if you want to give Republicans the slightest of advantage, it's just this, that of those 22 seats, it means that Republicans still don't need to win as big a percentage of those seats as Democrats.

Democrats do, right? So they need to win like 40% of those toss-ups and they still hold the House. Democrats need to win more like two-thirds of those to flip. So because if you take everything outside of toss-up, the ones that we consider leaning or likely or solid for Republicans versus Democrats, you know, you add that up, then

then look at, okay, how many do they need out of the toss-up category? And in that case, Republicans still need a bigger share of that toss-up category. So they do need to get all the right breaks, which means they can't afford Jared Golden to lose in Maine. He has a good brand. He has sort of established himself in this way of like, he's not a traditional Washington guy.

Democrat, but again, in a presidential year and a whole bunch of people turn out that, you know, you can't can't really control. You've got a person like Marcy Kaptur, who's been in the House for, I think, 175 years or something representing Toledo. Everybody knows. Everybody knows Marcy Kaptur. I mean, everybody knows Marcy Kaptur.

So she has a brand there, but again, Ohio is not the Ohio of 1992 or whatever she won.

I'm curious, Amy, just listening to you, it does remind me that I think great humility is required in this election. There's a, I mean, Democrats have a... Yes, there's so much unknown.

It's always humbling for people who have been involved in managing campaigns to say this, but campaigns don't change anything big. They can't change a race that you are going to naturally lose 55, 45 to win. But a better campaign, when it's distinctively better than your opponent, can win a race that you might have lost naturally 51, 49. Flip that, right? So I'm just curious, in an era where there's so much money flowing through all these races...

How do you, as a close observer, say, well, you know, that candidate, that campaign might overperform. They're showing signs. You know, Sherrod Brown's a great example of this on our side. There are signs. There's obviously Republican examples where you're kind of able to navigate headwinds. I'm just curious your thought on that, because I think as you talk about the House and the Senate and these battleground states, like... It is really important. It matters. I do think the candidates matter. And to your point, like...

We all know that the presidential races have been decided by, you know, just a handful of votes in these swing states. But, you know, these House races, these Senate races, we're really talking about, you know, shift 10,000, 5,000 votes. And it's not just like, oh, well, Democrats picked up another couple seats. It's like, literally, that's the difference between Democrats being in the majority or Republicans being in the majority. It's like,

Only a shift of a tiny bit is a humongous difference. And as you guys also know, this is a cruelty of politics. You know, when you win, you're brilliant, even if you only win by 1,000 votes. When you lose, you're an idiot, even if you only lose by 1,000 votes. And at the end of the day, it's, you know, it is a cruel business. And it's not, it's some of the best things

The best campaigns that I've covered, why I loved those campaigns is that they were two really great candidates, really good campaigns. At the end of the day, one of them had to lose. So I look at one of my favorite parts of the job is we still meet with almost all of the House candidates. And you really can, it's remarkable, pretty quickly...

get a sense for whether this candidate is going to be the right fit, have the right message, kind of understand the dynamics of the race that they're in. And I think what Democrats, my sense from Democrats came into town, I guess this was like three weeks ago, they brought all of their candidates in. Many of them are reruns. Okay. So in their top races, these are folks who lost in 22. And,

And they're really going all in on abortion. And I think that is what they're saying. Again, aside from, as I said, there are some candidates who really stand out because they're just impressive. They have a good story. You can tell they're a good fit for their district. But it does seem to me that if Democrats are going to make some gains where they're counting on making the gains themselves,

is on abortion. And I think what makes abortion interesting in 2024 is that, and this is to the point, Kellyanne, you made about why are Republicans in these Senate races running behind Trump? Republicans don't get the benefit of the doubt, these down ballot Republicans on abortion or on the economy that Trump does. And they are going to have to make that up.

Now, some of it they will, again, some of it is, again, you'll see like they're only getting like 75% of the Republican vote. Like they're going to get those people are going to come home. But some of it is negatives attached to

to Republicans on abortion are not sticking as much to Trump as they are to the down ballot Republicans, which makes sense. People don't know who they are. And the Democrats, in a generic sense, get the benefit of the doubt on abortion. So that's where some Republicans are going to have to overcome that. And then on the economy, voters aren't

placing the blame on the down ballot Democrats in the way that they're putting it on Biden. Right. So that I think is also what's distinguishing that. Now, if you're the Republican Senate campaign committee, you know exactly what you're going to do. You got to attach all those Senate candidates to like what Kellyanne just said, like, well, you voted for Biden's agenda 99% of the time, you're part of the problem. Right. But you got to remind people of that. They have no idea about that.

And if you're Democrats, you spend a whole lot of time, which is what they're doing, saying,

Don't let this Senate candidate fool you. He is an extremist on abortion. So, Amy, it's such an important point because another criticism coming out of 2022, frankly, is that Republicans didn't finish their sentences. They didn't complete the sale. It was inflation, crime, Fauci, Putin, Biden. Those are barely words, not sentences. And to your point, I mean, even when I'm asked, do you think that they can replace Biden and Harris at the convention? Whatever the answer to that is,

Who cares? Because if Republicans are smart and the strategists are smart, they will make these Democratic candidates eat and own all the Biden failings and flailings. What Democrat has stood up and said, I've been in the room with Joe Biden?

70% of America is right. He's not up to the job. He doesn't have the energy, ability, acuity, and agility. They're not doing that. So I think if Republicans need to make these Democrats, these big name Democrats in swing states like Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and John Tester in Montana, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, the list goes on and on. But really, even these House candidates, believe me,

All roads go through Trump, right? I mean, I'm sure the debate prep in Camp David for Joe Biden is all Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. It seems to be the answer for everything. So if that's going to be the case, my goodness, at the very least cost of admission makes these Democratic candidates eat and own. I wanted to shift a little bit.

I know very much on David and my mind is, and since we last podcasted together, there was a pretty deep dive by USA Today into black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania. I feel the fact that USA Today is spending its

polling resources on interviewing black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania means that this is problematic for Joe Biden. We see in all of the polling, we see President Trump in Detroit, like he did in 2016. That's where he famously said, what do you have to lose? You've been voting Democratic all this time. What do you have to lose? At least give me a second look.

contrast Joe Biden's in Hollywood with his pals there. But I say this because what the USA Today found is sagging support for Biden among African-American voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but they're not yet fully committed to Trump. They're sort of flirting and tending that way. Black VP selection could backfire on Trump. That was curious to me why. Kamala Harris less popular than Joe Biden. How does that get fixed? Does it matter? And one of

that really struck me I haven't seen covered enough I'm curious on both your takes is that

Third party appeal among African-Americans in Michigan and Pennsylvania, according to USA Today, was about 1% in 2020. Now it's 15% in Michigan, 16% of Pennsylvania. That was curious to me. But Van Jones, former Obama White House official, and of course, frequent guest on CNN and Elsewise, I sat next to him at Milken on a panel last month, and he made very clear that every time the Democratic Party says suburban women, suburban women, suburban women, abortion, suburban women,

A lot of African-American men don't hear them included in that. It was a very big aha moment for me. And I'm curious how you knit all this together. David, do you have any? Well, listen, I've always thought in politics, like you got to follow where the numbers are. Right. So this race is different than 2020. So in many respects, I think African-American men are a more important swing.

than what we traditionally think of as suburban women in Maricopa County. That's just reality. So you better run a campaign that says, if you're the Biden campaign, I could lose them to Trump. I could lose them to RFK. I could lose them to not voting. So I think that that is, you know, in a campaign this complicated, and I think this is true for Senate and House races, but in the presidential campaign,

You know, that's going to be decided, I think, at the end of the day, unless, you know, one of these candidates has a serious health incident or really bombs, the debate is going to be close. All this stuff matters. And so I think that what the Biden campaign knows in Pennsylvania and Michigan is what number can't they go below? Right. And it's probably 87, 88. It's not, you know, 80.

I mean, unless they're going to improve their white vote by three points, let's say, which seems like a stretch, maybe they can improve it by a point.

So I think that's the key thing. And I think that the important thing, I think, that Kellyanne mentioned in these pollings is obviously it's like a DEFCON 1 situation, but those voters aren't sold yet. Right. They're not in cement. So you've got the opportunity and a lot of them are choosing Democrats and other races. So it's always I always thought it's good in politics to know everything you can know, even if you don't like what it is, you know. And so, you know, you have a problem. You know who those voters are with the data we have today. You actually know who those voters are.

Yeah.

And suburban women. And suburban women. And so, right, the question there is you want to maximize that. I mean, if you can get another half. Right. Well, that's the question. If you're fully maxed, then you're just trying to prevent erosion on the bottom. But I think it's fascinating. And Kelly, and you're right, I hope more news organizations begin to look at different parts of the electorate in these states, the Hispanic community for sure, younger voters. I think it's a great service.

Well, and I think we've been seeing you guys for some time now. You know, Democrats kind of got lazy in some of these places like Michigan and Pennsylvania where you go, oh, you just drive up your number in Philadelphia, just drive up your number in Detroit. So and.

And, you know, the conversation was always about what's going on in Macomb County or what's going on in Philadelphia suburbs. Well, that's fine. But you didn't take care of the base that you always counted on to be like the bulwark. Like you need Detroit to come in. You need Philadelphia to come in. Well, look at that Wisconsin center. And Wisconsin and Milwaukee. You can build on that.

And that's what you should always be looking to. So while you're up in Door County or off in the Wow counties, whatever, you can't not have Milwaukee come home. And it is, you know, look, I think this is what the campaign is trying to do, but I don't think it's working effectively is theoretically that's where you send your vice president to say, OK.

Only spend time, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, right? Like all day, every day in those communities doing nothing else but outreach and talking to those voters, making sure the ones that like you come home, convincing younger voters to show up. And the other really fascinating, I mean, look, we are living through many challenges.

fascinating times, but it's always interesting to be living through this, the change in coalition era that we're coming to. And it makes some sense that as more and more voters are choosing to cast a ballot based on ideology more than other issues, right? More than on

policy that, of course, if you are conservative, whether regardless of your race or ethnicity, you see the Republican Party as more aligned. If you align yourself as more of a liberal, regardless of your race, you're going to see yourself more aligned with the Democratic Party. Democrats have been able to win over a significant number for years and years and years of conservative Latinos and African-Americans.

And I think those voters now are loosened from their moorings to the party because the ideology is more attuned to Republicans. And the question in my mind going forward is like,

You know, where else does this sort of shift? How does this shift out ultimately? But the how do Democrats keep them?

it has to be on issues where maybe ideologically they may not see eye to eye on all the issues. But this is one thing I will say that I'm going to write about it this week. And in looking specifically, I was looking at Latino voters because we did more of an oversample in Nevada and Arizona of Latino voters. And look, again,

They are much closer to white voters in terms of how they feel about the candidates and the issues. The one big difference when we ask them, OK, who do you think would be better on the economy? Trump wins by the same margin that he wins with white voters. But then about the whole like, who do you think is looking out for you? Who do you think understands you? This is where Biden has an advantage. And it's why I think you saw the ad that he's been putting up about

You know, he just went up with an ad of like, I kind of I feel your pain kind of is or like, I can understand your values in a way that Donald Trump cannot or Republicans cannot. And that's where I do think.

That is going to be a fascinating way of seeing how those voters respond to those messages. Absolutely. Yeah, no, that is by far their best answer on the economy. And listen, in 2012, when we won against Romney in a very bad economic, though, improving situation.

You know, people were feeling a little bit better, but still pretty unhappy, understandably. It's really just to disqualify Romney as he just doesn't get you. He doesn't get the iron worker. He doesn't get the nurse. And so I think Biden does have some strength there, given his background. And I think that's what he has to mine, because I think that's really the only hope to get voters who are unhappy about inflation out.

And blaming Biden in part for it to get them to say, OK, but all things being equal, Biden will make decisions with me and my family. First and foremost, Trump and the Republicans won't. I think, quite frankly, that's harder against Trump than the Republican. I think the Republican brand is quite tarnished in that way. Well, that's right. That's right. But that's what they have to do.

Yeah.

Well, listen, Amy, no one knows House districts or Senate races or the electorate better than you. So it was a real pleasure for you to spend time. We learned a lot. I hope the audience does as well. And we'll be following everything you say and do over the coming months with enormous interest. Thanks, you guys. No question. Everyone follow all of Amy's reports on the political report and be sure to check out her podcast, The Odd Years. So for myself, David Plouffe.

And for me, Kellyanne Conway, thank you so much for joining us, all the listeners and viewers. And remember, it's easy to be enraged. It's essential to be engaged. We'll see you next week. Have a great week, everyone.